Stargate Ragnarok: The First Rule
by Sealurk
Summary: Ep 2: The fallout from the first encounter with the Fenrir is more problematic than SG-27 anticipated, but it might offer them a new mission, and a new approach. Set a few weeks after SGA s5 Enemy at the Gate, spoilers for that. SG-1 spin-off.
1. Chapter 1

**Stargate Ragnarok**

**The First Rule**

Four days into the assignment, and the sight of the installation still took him by surprise every time he walked past a window and spotted it. He was drawn to it, finding it hard not to look at it and examine its intricate design, to admire its extraordinary scale.

The light from the primary star was faint out here, but there was still enough illumination to show the vast silvery structure of one of the Gleipnir arrays contrasted against the impossibly black void of space – but not all of that light came from the sun-like star that sat twenty astronomical units away. Behind the seven hundred mile long framework of the installation sat a sphere of perfect black a little more than four miles across, visible only because of the faint and partly glowing accretion disc around it. The _Apollo_ was a huge vehicle by Earth standards; larger than a _Nimitz_-class aircraft carrier, but she was a barely visible speck next to the Gleipnir station.

"Oh yes, why don't you stare out of the window. That'll help us so much as we try to determine the decay rate of the subspace impedance field."

Nesbitt closed his eyes and muttered under his breath before turning, smiling and still holding a travel mug in each hand. The laboratory was a surprisingly large chamber by virtue of the fact that it was a converted storage bay, but to Nesbitt it felt claustrophobically cramped with the other occupant's ego taking up so much space.

"Oh, its subspace impedance field is it now? I should have known you'd put your own label on it eventually. Anyway - remind me how much data you said we'd have to collect before we could make more than an educated guess? Was it three hours, or four?"

"Um...well...five, actually." McKay said sheepishly.

Fuming, the Canadian scientist turned to the computer terminal before turning back.

"You know, you should be grateful I agreed to come along and do this for you. I'm supposed to be on Atlantis right now."

"No no, _with_, you're doing this _with_ me. You always have trouble with that word – maybe that's why you can't grasp the concept of shared credit. And for the record, I never wanted you here. I'm perfectly capable of handling this on my own. You're here because the UK government isn't exactly flavour of the month where offworld operations are concerned right now and Bill's still on holiday – I'm lucky I got to come at all, even if I had to have a babysitter the US government trusts. I hardly know a damn thing that's going on with the SGC, the IOA…anything. God, sometimes it makes me so angry – you annihilated a solar system, turned the Asurans into a race of Terminators somehow managed to make some Wraith even more dangerous, and you barely get a slap on the wrist. We let a few hundred wolves out of captivity and we get suspended and lined up for a joint DoD / MoD investigation. Are you going to take this coffee or what?"

McKay swivelled in his chair, pointing angrily as he grabbed the proffered travel mug.

"First of all, it was more like five sixths of a solar system, and secondly...secondly you antagonised a race that might prove to be a bigger threat than the Wraith and Asurans _combined_ and showed them how to escape their prison!"

"At least the Fenrir are still in captivity. Well...most of them. And at least we didn't wake an entire species of human-farming space vampires from hibernation decades early..." Nesbitt muttered, sipping the tea and glancing at a computer display.

"Really? You just want to moan and complain for the next five hours? You know what, I'm so happy for you. You can just remind everyone that they'll be safe for a few more years while massaging your ego and telling everyone that you were right, it wasn't your fault and you couldn't have known." McKay spat as he raised the mug to his lips.

Nesbitt paused, staring at a monitor in contemplation before raising his eyebrows.

"You really have no idea how ironic it is to hear those words coming from your mouth, do you?"

"Gentleman, please tell me you have something right now? I'd hate to think you're just spending all your time arguing."

Nesbitt and McKay turned to see Colonel Ellis in the doorway, arms crossed.

"No, well, actually we were, uh..." McKay stammered, his hands quickly raised and gesticulating. Nesbitt saw it and shook his head – it was a familiar mannerism for Rodney McKay when he needed to explain something, the habitual 'invisible Rubik's cube' routine. "The good news is that we now know the array is heavily shielded, but beyond that, um, well, we, uh, don't have much. See, the problem is we still don't understand how the Asgard tapped the black hole's energy without depleting its rotation or using some variation on the Penrose process. We're assuming they bypass the ergosphere completely and somehow draw power directly from the singularity by means of a subspace tap that -"

"Doctor." Ellis said impatiently. McKay stopped abruptly.

"Colonel, what the world's most intelligent moron means to say is that the longer we stay here, the more accurate we can make our figure for the IOA We're guessing the decay rate is nearly constant, but we need at least a few more hours to make sure." Nesbitt said calmly.

"Um, yes, what he said...wait, what?" McKay said, pointing enthusiastically at Nesbitt before staring at him with his mouth open.

The intercom buzzed a fraction of a second before alarm tones sounded.

"Sir, we might have a situation here. We detected a hyperspace event eleven thousand miles away, looks like two vessels, unknown silhouette. They're on an intercept course."

"Raise shields, arm weapons and have the hyperdrive brought online – I'm on my way." Ellis said as he jogged out of the laboratory. Nesbitt quickly stood up and followed.

The _Apollo_'s bridge wasn't far from the laboratory. As Ellis settled into the commander's chair, Major Marks updated him.

"Shortly after exiting hyperspace, the two contacts split. It now looks like six ships heading our way. Sensors are having a hard time getting much data on them, but we think the two main contacts are approximately the size of Puddle Jumpers, but with very different configurations, while the four other contacts are significantly smaller."

"All right, keep working on the sensors – Doctors, since you're here, do you mind assisting? Open a channel, Major."

As McKay began tapping fervently at his tablet PC, Nesbitt moved to one of the rear bridge stations and began conversing with the sensor technician there. Marks nodded and tapped a string of commands into his console.

"This is the Earth Vessel _Apollo_ to unidentified vessels. State your business and halt your advance."

Seconds passed.

"I say again, state your business and halt your advance, or we will open fire."

"Sir…they're-" Marks began. The _Apollo_ rocked as the shields flared. "-Opening fire!"

"All railguns, return fire."

Although there was only vacuum outside the ship, the railguns could be heard inside as a dull, fast pounding, the sounds of their loading systems gobbling ammunition at a phenomenal rate. The _Apollo_ shook again as the mystery attackers fired.

"Colonel, our shields have dropped by almost twenty-five percent!" Marks said, alarmed and confused.

"What? Ships that small couldn't possibly do that much damage to Asgard shields." Ellis exclaimed.

"There's more – the railguns can't lock on the targets."

Nesbitt glanced at the view through the bridge's window. As Marks had said, the streams of hypervelocity projectiles he could see were erratic and tracked sluggishly, firing into space behind, above and below their distant targets as they jinked and rolled. One of the craft rushed towards the bridge, unleashing a volley of bright blue-white energy packets into the _Apollo_'s strained shielding, and his blood chilled as it sped past. There was no mistaking the shape – an arrowhead, split along its length with a bullet between the two halves.

"It's the Fenrir!"

Almost as if to confirm this, one of the larger shuttles flew into view, spraying the blue-white bolts across the length of the _Apollo_'s spine. Nesbitt had last seen one hauling a train of cargo canisters out of the Stargate on P7T-434.

"Shields now at fifty-eight percent! Hyperdrive is offline."

The _Apollo_ shook again, and this time the lights flickered. A few displays blanked for a second before reinitialising, and somewhere in the nearby corridors, something blew with a bang. Alarmed voices called for fire extinguishers.

"Decompression on deck seven, port side. No casualties."

"Beam weapons, now!"

The dome-shaped turrets housing the advanced Asgard energy weapons came to life, firing long bolts of dense plasma at the Fenrir ships. Each bolt missed by a wide margin.

"No hits. Shields now at forty-three percent, decks four, eight and nine reporting damage. Three casualties." Marks reported as the ship trembled again.

"If you're going to do anything Doctor McKay, now would be a good time – we're getting our asses handed to us!" Ellis yelled.

"I'm trying, but the sensors can't get a solid lock on those ships. I'm attempting to compensate and redirect power to the arrays. Maybe if they have more power they can punch through whatever's jamming them."

Hearing this, Nesbitt hurried to the front, leaning over Colonel Ellis' shoulder.

"Colonel – the sensors are Asgard! The railguns and beam weapons are tied in to them…but the missiles aren't, they use their own human-made radar and infrared. Try them."

"Worth a shot. Major Marks…"

"Missiles, aye."

On the _Apollo_'s spine, three hatches flew open. A fraction of a second later, a trio of white spears streaked out trailing flame and smoke, accelerating rapidly towards their targets. The first slammed into one of the larger shuttles as it arced out of a strafing run on the _Apollo_'s starboard hangar, detonating with a brilliant yellow fireball. The shuttle's shield glowed almost solid scarlet for several seconds as the small ship was hurled on a chaotic trajectory away from the _Apollo_, its engines lighting sporadically as it tumbled.

The second missile annihilated one of the smaller split delta-shaped ships in a violent conflagration.

Even as the third missile was closing on its target, the Fenrir vessels began their retreat. The three remaining arrow fighters smoothly and swiftly docked under the outstretched wings of the two larger shuttles, and just as the last missile hurtled towards them, their hyperdrives engaged and they were gone. The missile, now without any targets, streaked through the points where a fraction of a second before there had been solid targets and hyperspace windows.

"Hostiles have jumped away." Marks reported.

"Send the self-destruct signal to that missile, get a damage report, and somebody tell me how the hell they took our shields down so fast."

* * *

Churning black clouds filled the sky, blocking out the early evening sun and hurling thick sheets of rain to the ground. Freezing wind slammed the falling water sideways. In the distance, a faint flicker of bright white light was accompanied moments later by an ominous rumbling.

"God, I've missed this place." Taylor murmured.

London was as busy as ever, both on the pavements and on the roads. As the staff car picked its way slowly through the early evening rush hour traffic, the wipers barely able to hold back the barrage of ice-cold January rain, he idly watched the crowds as they produced umbrellas, pulled their coats tight and hurried through the streets as if nobody else existed. Drivers beeped their horns, remaining typically intolerant of everybody else on the road.

Despite the weather, and even the people to a point, Taylor couldn't help but feel content at being back in England – it had been too long since he'd last been in the country. He had been pulled directly from a three-month tour in Afghanistan to be briefed on the Stargate program and his new role in it, and immediately flown across the Atlantic. There, he'd spent three months living in Las Vegas and commuting to the Nevada Offworld Training Establishment alongside the rest of his team and Major Hamilton's – even experienced soldiers needed to retrain for offworld operations. Following this, both teams had been posted to Colorado Springs to work at Stargate Command, with Taylor as the commanding officer of the second British offworld unit.

Now, a matter of hours since touching down at RAF Brize Norton, he was in London. He knew he should think himself lucky that he wasn't required to attend Whitehall today, but even with a day and a half to rest and prepare for the extensive and highly classified debriefing that awaited him, attended and run by very senior Ministry of Defence officers – Major General Bullock was certain to be among them – Taylor felt unease.

Part of him wanted to return immediately to the SGC, to get back to doing what he had been asked to do for his country, but other parts reminded him he was still injured, even if the incident on P7T-434 had been almost two months ago. Although almost healed, his ribs ached, and the three gashes across the left side of his chest itched and burned – the creature's claws had even punctured his Kevlar tactical vest and the ballistic strike plate inside. He'd still made a good (if somewhat slow) recovery, but his injuries paled in comparison to those of Sergeant Jarvis. After four different, and long, surgical procedures, Dr Lam had removed twenty-three trinium flechettes, patched up more than thirty-seven separate flechette wounds distributed across almost his whole body, replaced a little under two pints of blood and performed reconstructive surgery on his shredded right arm and shoulder. And yet the man was already back on his feet – barely – and doing what he could to get back in shape, and it was this refusal to lie back and recuperate that kept popping his stitches and aggravating his injuries. It would be a while yet before he was once again cleared for active duty, if indeed any of them were allowed to return to Stargate Command.

The rest of his team would also be called to the debriefing, eventually. They'd only just finished giving their testimonies and defences in front of US Department of Defence and International Oversight Advisory representatives in Washington. As yet, Taylor didn't know if the incident on 434 was considered a disaster or a triumph. Whichever it turned out to be, he was sure General Bullock would use it to further his objective of major British involvement in the predominantly American Stargate programme. He had numerous supporters in the IOA, thanks in part to carefully planned contributions to the Atlantis Expedition.

Only time would tell if Taylor was about to become a scapegoat or a hero.

* * *

The interview room was almost featureless and distinctly unfriendly, painted in a disgustingly bland shade of grey-green, and he sensed that the appearance of it not having seen any kind of improvement since the beginning of the Cold War was a carefully cultivated one – standard MoD décor taken to extremes for the purpose of making the occupant feel unwelcome. He also got the sense that many careers had ended in this room, given how out of the way it was in the labyrinthine mass of corridors and rooms in the Ministry of Defence.

Two small windows let in a meagre amount of light, and the only view was of a small portion of the roof of Whitehall and the rain trickling down the tiles. Cold strip lighting added to the effect. There was no decoration beyond the single plain table and chairs – three behind the table facing one in the middle of the room. Most noticeable of all, it was cold. Whether this was a failure in the central heating or a trick to keep interviewees alert and on edge he didn't know, but it was the least of his worries. Being called back to the Ministry of Defence in the UK to evaluate whether he and his team had escalated a major crisis in the galaxy or fortuitously alerted the IOA member states to a grave threat early was something of a cause for concern. Even if the outcome was positive, the decisions he had made in the lead up, about his team's selection, even his choice of equipment and firearms, could cost him the leadership of an SG team.

He had been sitting in the middle chair in his dress uniform, facing three senior MoD officers – one of them a Deputy Chief of Staff – for the last two hours.

"You say you observed one of these creatures release a single human being into what you described as," the General consulted the report in front of him, though it was obvious he didn't need to, "'a hunting pen' and proceeded to hunt him. You go on to say that the animal stalked the man and mauled him to death. Can I ask, Major...why did you not intervene?"

"It was the first time we had seen a Fenrir. We -"

"You hesitated because you had seen an alien?"

He could almost hear the General's unspoken words in his head – stopping and gaping because E.T. walked in front of you hardly befits an SG team leader.

"No sir. We didn't know the context of what we were seeing."

Major General Richard Bullock laughed contemptuously.

"You watched a terrified man be attacked and violently, _viciously _killed by a ferocious predator that you considered to be intelligent and technologically capable. I should say that's enough bloody context Major Taylor."

Sometimes, Taylor mused, facing angry insurgents with Kalashnikovs and RPGs was easier than facing an MoD general. Especially General Bullock, he thought. But Bullock was hugely in favour of continued British Stargate operations – so why was he giving one of only two team leaders such a hard time? Perhaps, he thought, he wasn't satisfied and he wanted somebody more competent and capable. Maybe he's simply putting on a show for the other two officers. Or he could be testing me, Taylor thought.

"With respect sir, it isn't. For all we knew, the man could have been a criminal, and this might have been his punishment."

"And what if it was? Do you condone violent, painful deaths for criminals? We no longer support capital punishment in this country."

"No sir. But we are trained not to jump to conclusions, and to be more tolerant of alien cultures than we might be of Earth cultures – we don't immediately know what factors have shaped their societies. And with respect, sir, we do have strong relations with at least one nation that still uses the death penalty."

Was that a trace of a smile on Bullock's face? Taylor dared not examine it for fear of what he might actually see.

"Now, the incident on P7T-434 once you returned through the Stargate. You were followed by the Fenrir?"

"Yes sir. I had requested Lieutenant Llewellyn set a large demolition charge in the DHD to destroy the Asgard crystal and therefore cause the Stargate to shut down once we were through."

"But it didn't work."

"No sir. I believe the charge was blown apart by enemy fire, and as such, failed to detonate."

"What happened next?"

Taylor swallowed. The battle had been almost a month ago, but the images were fresh in his mind.

"We had little choice but to engage the Fenrir as they came through."

Bullock nodded thoughtfully and glanced at his notes, and Taylor realised that the worst was yet to come.

"Let's get to the important part – we can come back to the rest. How many of their ships got out, Major?" one of the other officers said. Taylor had been introduced to him a short time ago, and he knew who he was – Air Commodore Frank Horner.

"I counted at least twenty of the larger craft, the ones pulling trains of pods behind them, but the non-combatants I sent away said they saw at least twenty-six."

Taylor knew what was coming next.

"Major - how many Fenrir do you think were aboard those craft, or the pods?" Horner asked.

"I expect much of the space was taken up with supplies and equipment, but I expect the number is in the hundreds, maybe a thousand sir."

Horner smiled in much the same way a snake might before sinking its fangs into a helpless rodent.

"Up to a thousand? Potentially one thousand Fenrir are roaming the galaxy, with a few dozen hyperspace capable ships."

Taylor wasn't sure how to respond, but as he opened his mouth, Bullock spoke. He mentally thanked the general for saving him the trouble of forming a response...and then he heard what the general was saying.

"I understand you've raised doubts about Stargate Command's methods as far as their search and destroy operation is going."

* * *

His boots pounded through the crisp white snow as fast as his burning muscles could force them. Behind him, he could hear nothing but alien snarling and the sound of several pairs of alien feet rushing towards him, trinium-laced claws slicing straight through the snow and clinking against the frozen ground underneath. In front of him, Dr. Nguyen was running faster than he'd ever seen the biologist run before, practically dragging the half-conscious Lieutenant Schreiner towards the gate. Schreiner had long since lost his weapon, concerned more with pressing down on the sucking chest wound inflicted by the flechettes and trying not to fall unconscious or scream in pain.

"Captain! Dial the gate!" O'Bannon bawled, hoping he'd depressed the transmit switch on his radio properly. His left arm was almost useless, an agonising bloody mess that he held tightly across his body with his right hand. It had been shredded by the same alien weapons that had nearly killed Schreiner, but for the moment at least, his legs still worked, and if he had his way, they wouldn't stop until he felt the clank of the ramp under his feet and saw a dozen marines and airmen pointing carbines and fifty calibre machine guns behind him.

The baying was getting closer with every second. The familiar whooshing sound and the flash of blue light to his right between the snow-covered pine trees suddenly became the most welcoming sight he could imagine, but this thought was quickly dispelled by a streak of bright orange close to his head.

"Gate's open sir!" Captain Tomlinson's voice boomed over the radio. O'Bannon didn't waste any time.

"Sierra Golf Charlie, this is Sierra Golf One Five Niner! We are coming in hot, repeat, we are coming in hot! Heavy Fenrir presence here, and we have significant intell. Team will require immediate medical attention, over."

For a second time, he wondered if his hand, numb from blood loss and cold, had been pushing down on the transmit button.

"Roger, Colonel. IDC confirmed, Iris retracted. Medical and defence teams are en route to gate room." Harriman's calm, distinctive voice was a huge source of relief.

"Sir! They're getti-" Captain Tomlinson yelled, abruptly cut off by a gurgling sound. O'Bannon knew what that sound was. The faintly visibly figure standing next to the Stargate keeled over as the lines of orange stopped suddenly, falling silently and limply into the open wormhole.

He grabbed his P90 with his right arm and fired it blindly behind him.

* * *

"Yes sir. I believe the SGC has underestimated the Fenrir, and their plan to find the ones that escaped is fundamentally flawed." Taylor said. He didn't know how Bullock or Horner had heard of his concerns, but he was sure that denying them or playing them down would be a mistake.

"How so?" Bullock asked. Now he was wearing the same smile Horner had used – Taylor couldn't think of a more humourless expression.

"Collectively, the SGC has tremendous offworld experience, but they're used to fighting against very large forces that are geared towards occupation and dominance over a relatively primitive populace, and as such make little use of strategic and even tactical options as we might see them, relying more on unsubtle brute force, intimidation and numerical and technological superiority. I believe the Fenrir are a very different kind of enemy, a very warlike and tactically minded enemy, and if the theories my teammates have come up with are even close to correct, they will be much, much more challenging. The Fenrir seem to be consummate hunters and the evidence of the hunting pen we encountered on PX2-95Y, the design and function of their weapons and their very shape would seem to confirm this. If their lives and biology revolve around the act of hunting, as Dr. Halverson and Corporal Moffatt have suggested, they almost certainly know how to apply the same knowledge and instinct to evasion, as well as their apparent talent for stealth. I fully expect them to be very, very hard to track down and harder still to engage in battle."

* * *

There were two wolves moving towards the Stargate – the ones that had chased them to the gate had merely been driving them here, forcing them headlong into a trap. Now it was simply a matter of getting to the gate before they were cut down.

Nguyen had his Beretta out, even though he knew how useless the weapon would be against the Fenrir. Schreiner was stumbling and staggering more and more, the snow behind him dotted with more and more scarlet. Tomlinson was almost certainly dead, and O'Bannon himself was feeling faint from the blood loss and exertion.

His P90's magazine was almost empty, down to the last eight rounds, and with his left arm so badly damaged, there was no way he could reload it without stopping.

"Go through, I've sent the IDC!" he bellowed to Nguyen, hearing his hoarse voice crack from the strain of the last half hour and his exhausted, burning lungs.

The gate gulped as Nguyen ran through, Schreiner toppling after him. Ten more metres, he realised, and he'd be with them. There was a high-pitched mechanical scream behind him, a brief but loud noise that ceased as abruptly as it started.

He spasmed as his right flank flooded with a sensation like a cluster of white-hot needles being jabbed into his body at the same time as a heavyweight boxer delivered a kidney punch. He screamed and tried to clutch the area, knowing his kidney was perforated by the hypersonic trinium flechettes, but kept moving forward.

A second burst clipped his left thigh and he screamed again, falling to his knees. It took all his strength just to remain upright. He could hear the wolves closing on him now, but slowly, as if taking positions around him.

A mountain of muscle wrapped in black fur and patchwork armour slammed into the ground four metres ahead of him, snarling in the distinctly alien yet extremely lupine manner of the Fenrir. Bright gold-orange eyes, devoid of pupils, stared at him as black lips drew back, exposing rows of sharp silver teeth. The wolf must have taken off almost ten metres away - he hadn't believed SG-27's report that the Fenrir could jump that far, insisting it must have been a mistake, the result of Taylor's understandably clouded perception in the heat of battle.

He knew he'd been wrong, and he knew he'd never see his wife again.

Sighing, he raised the P90 shakily.

* * *

Now even Horner seemed intrigued. Bullock made an irritated gesture for Taylor to continue.

"The SGC are working under the assumption that the Fenrir won't stray far from the Gleipnir arrays or the only gate known to be capable of accessing the prison. They have organised a massive search of key worlds with Stargates within fifty light years of the prison, backed up with the BC-304s as they become available. This strikes me as completely wrong. The Fenrir have hyperspace capable ships, and they've been planning their escape, and revenge, for thousands of years based on the gap in the Goa'uld cartouche. They're not going to risk being discovered – they'll head for a world without a gate, or maybe even a moon, asteroid or comet, in a non-descript, uninhabited system far from the prison. There, they'll consolidate their position, lie low, quietly gather resources and establish a major forward base of operations, waiting for the search to die down. They may even send out a few ships or patrols to make carefully planned 'appearances' in or near the search area, drawing the SGC's assets towards a single area...in completely the wrong part of the galaxy. Only once they've got a decent power base will they begin openly engaging us."

"And you determined all of this from a single engagement?" Horner asked, incredulously.

* * *

"They will return for you, prey?"

The puddle evaporated in the Stargate, but O'Bannon, kneeling in the snow with a P90 held in one hand and pointed unsteadily at the black furred Fenrir in front of him, had accepted he wouldn't get out of this alive. Six more of the animals stood behind him, but he suspected the one in front was an officer, or the werewolf equivalent. Even with snow settling evenly on its pitch-black fur, he could see an elaborate, curling design branded into its face, somewhat resembling a Maori tattoo. What had startled him was that the Fenrir was talking to him. Its voice sounded strange, unlike anything he'd heard before, neither Goa'uld nor Wraith. It was a deep, rumbling voice that rasped as if it was spoken through gritted teeth, but it was accompanied in odd places by bass rumbles, hisses and clicks.

Curiously, neither the animal's lips nor its jaws moved as it spoke – it simply gaped. At once, he suspected that the Fenrir couldn't make human sounds easily – instead it was mimicking a human voice the way a parrot might, entirely in its throat.

The creature, almost eight feet tall despite a hunched back, moved fluidly towards him. O'Bannon smiled. He knew his life was almost at an end, but that didn't matter.

"Steven Jay O'Bannon. Colonel, U.S. Air-" he began, calmly.

The Fenrir shuddered and its lips drew back further. A stuttering rumble accompanied by rapid clicking issued from its open mouth. He was sure that was laughter.

The back handed swipe came faster than he thought possible for such a large animal. Three metres away, he landed in the snow, his head shaking, his body screaming in pain, and his lungs desperately trying to suck down air. He pulled himself upright, but his ribs protested, sending electric strikes of agony into his brain – he knew instantly that if it had hit his head, it would be bouncing across the snow right now like an obscene football. For now, he curled over, his arms clutched to his chest and hidden from view. His P90 was still attached to its harness, but it wouldn't do him much good.

"Defiance is honourable, and refreshing to me...but futile. However, I will grant you this - you make good prey, better than we have known for a long time. You will also make a good trophy once you cease to be useful. The more useful you are, the swifter and more honourable your end will be."

Useful, he thought. So they didn't intend to kill him here - he was pretty sure that meant they expected to torture and interrogate him. He could hear their shuttles closing in now, so rescue was unlikely, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the Fenrir had long since perfected the art of human torture, a belief reinforced by the human finger bones sewn in a line into the wolf's elaborate hide and metal armour. He had also witnessed worlds they had visited and massacred, openly displaying their sickening cruelty and brutality – he had seen it on this world in sickening close-up. Some at the SGC had theorised it was their response to the SGC's search, like killing a hostage every hour until they got what they wanted.

"These trophies, you like the prey to be in good condition when you make 'em? 'Cause I think I'm about to disappoint."

There hadn't been nearly enough rounds in the P90's final magazine to kill even one of the Fenrir. But it wasn't the only weapon he possessed. He relaxed his thumb as he spoke, and the safety lever pinged off, landing at the black wolf's feet. It stared at the small, curved piece of olive green metal. Realisation flashed into the wolf's brain and its eyes widened, following the metal's arcing path back to the small metal globe the human was no longer concealing in the hand of its wounded arm.

"Enjoy the fireworks."

Snarling ferociously, the Fenrir surged forwards with lightning speed, one arm raised with the clawed fingers extended, ready to slice through O'Bannon's arm and grasp the little orb.

Just before the silver talon contacted his flesh, the grenade detonated. O'Bannon disappeared in a flash of grey smoke, and the Fenrir was struck with white-hot shrapnel, the concussive force throwing it backwards into the snow. The wolves behind the spot where O'Bannon had been stumbled and shielded themselves from the grenade's spray, hissing angrily. Roaring in anger and pain, the black Fenrir got to its feet and signalled the rest of his pack. An armed shuttle descended rapidly out of the solid grey sky, hovering a metre above the snow. The pack boarded it, the injured black wolf last, knowing he would have to abandon the small outpost they had begun to construct here, and the operations they had already initiated. There were other worlds, and they couldn't risk being engaged in combat now – they would simply have to start over somewhere else. He leaned out of the door, staring at the remains of the trophy he had been denied, but feeling admiration for the human's actions – it would bring honour to its clan.

A chevron lit on the Stargate, and the black wolf signalled again. As the shuttle rose, more chevrons lit. The spoiled trophy's pack mates were returning to claim his body, to fight his hunters. Eventually, they would find the beginning of the decoy outpost, and they would destroy it.

Yes, these humans would be good sport.


	2. Chapter 2

Staring out of the window, one hand holding a beer and the other in his pocket, Taylor was the first to see the Vauxhall pull into the driveway. A minute later, Taylor smiled a weak greeting as Moffatt and Jarvis walked into the sitting room. Even when they had been at Stargate Command, they rarely saw each other out of uniform except for the occasional night out in Colorado Springs.

This was the first time they had all been together while off duty since a week before the near disastrous battle with the Fenrir on P7T-434. That was now over three months ago.

Taylor hadn't been keen on discussing the fortnight's events in as public a place as a restaurant, but he knew that after fourteen days of intensive scrutiny and interrogation, both individually and as a group by a classified Ministry of Defence review board, his team needed a legitimate reason for relaxing. They all needed an excuse for blowing off steam and most importantly sticking together, partly because he felt they might not be able to for much longer. Halverson had quickly suggested her almost deserted house in Oxford as a replacement venue, the tenants she had rented it to having departed a month before.

"Now we find out if Elise can cook." Taylor murmured. "Good timing, by the way - Martin was about to thrill us with the details of the inner workings and technical marvels of the Fenrir's weapons."

"Oh yes," Nesbitt said, oblivious to the sarcasm, "fascinating design. Compact, man-portable...well, _wolf_-portable infantry level railguns."

"Like a smaller version of what they've got on the 304's?" Llewellyn said.

"Oh good grief no. That's like comparing a 14th century cannon to a...a...Dave, what's a really modern rifle?"

"HK G36." Taylor said, still gazing out of the window.

"Yeah, what he said. Same principle, yes, but so much more advanced, so much more...elegant in design. Frankly, with their tech level, they should be employing personal energy weapons rather than projectiles. It's bizarre, really."

"It's painful, is what it is." Jarvis said, gratefully acknowledging the drink Halverson placed on the coffee table in front of him.

"I meant to ask," Moffatt said, "what happened with your trip on the _Apollo_? I heard it was a bit more eventful than you expected."

Nesbitt nodded slowly.

"Yeah, you could say that. Bloody Fenrir attacked us, almost took out the _Apollo_'s shields too. Still, we got the data we needed, although its not what you want to hear. The decay rate of the power feed to the Gleipnir array is constant, on all eight arrays too. We have five to ten years before the power level drops below the threshold required to maintain the barrier – we are damned lucky we discovered the Fenrir when we did. The good news is the arrays themselves are nigh-invulnerable – the shields are about as tough as the Atlantis city-shield, but bigger and powered by a black hole. So we can pretty much count on them surviving any number of Fenrir attacks, although it will also make repairing the arrays a lot harder."

There was silence for a moment as they digested that news.

"So, what's the fallout from the review board?" Llewellyn said.

"Hell if I know. But I'll bet the Pentagon are still doing their nut." Jarvis said, leaning forward gingerly. The flesh in his arm and shoulder was still recovering from the severe shredding it had received on P7T-434 courtesy of minute, hypersonic trinium darts, and the pain showed sometimes. As he reached for his beer, it was obvious that every movement was slower, more deliberate and carefully planned to avoid popping his stitches yet again. For quite some time, his refusal to take things easy had slowed his recovery, until Moffatt asked Taylor to order him to relax and allow his body to heal.

Moffatt slid the bottle closer, and the heavy weapons specialist thanked her.

Taylor turned and faced the group.

"The truth is that we're being kept in the dark, deliberately. Everything I know comes from Captain Maddock, and he could be risking his job by telling me, so don't repeat any of this to anybody. Right now, from what little I can make out, we need to keep our heads down – Hamilton's doing the same with his team. The DoD and MoD are flinging crap at each other like hyperactive monkeys, the SGC's up in arms because they lost twenty-one men, a mark 2 naquadah reactor _and_ they've had to cancel construction on the Epsilon Site to direct funds into a search for the Fenrir. I'm sorry to say it's looking increasingly unlikely that we'll be returning to the SGC. If we're lucky, we might be separated and reassigned to the new teams coming out of Nevada, but don't count on it." Taylor said, noticing the effect this had on his team. He started to raise the beer in his hand, but let it drop again.

"Maybe they'll let me go back to Area 51..." Nesbitt muttered, crestfallen.

"However, for the time being, we're on leave, whether we want to be or not, so do your best to relax, recuperate...whatever. We've got at least a few weeks of this, probably a month or two."

Halverson sat down opposite Jarvis.

"Honestly, I'm already sick of doing nothing. I'll have gone insane by the time we find out what's happening, and then I'll definitely never see the Stargate again." she said.

Taylor nodded, smiling faintly. The likelihood of never seeing the Stargate again, let alone going through it, was hitting him harder than the rest.

"I know what you mean. Which is why I asked Captain Maddock to pull a few strings – I'm driving up to Credenhill tomorrow for some extra training, and most likely I'll be there for a while – extra training and recertification are likely to be major conditions of our return to active duty if Maddock's right about the review board. Point is, if the tedium gets to any of you, you're welcome to join me, and there's always the idea that being seen training on our own time could work in our favour as far as getting back to the SGC is concerned. Elise, I'd really like you to attend, because I have something very specific in mind for you."

Halverson looked up, slightly startled.

"What? Me? No! Look, actually I was thinking about heading to the university to do some research on...you know, _them _and their impact on our cultures. Or even taking the ferry over to Norway and visiting NTNU to do the same."

"Pining for the fjords?" Taylor asked, taking a swig from the bottle.

"Oh shut up." Halverson snapped. Nesbitt was giggling, and even Jarvis was chuckling, before he winced sharply.

"Give it two days, that's all. Then you can go and visit your old stomping grounds – just inform Maddock first and make sure to leave a contact number this time."

* * *

"Remind me why we're training here?"

The Credenhill firing range was practically deserted – Taylor knew from personal experience that this was a rare occurrence, but the extra training, recertification and evaluation that had indeed been demanded by the MoD review board had unusual consequences. One was that regimental headquarters for 22 Special Air Service – his former base – was now currently hosting both active units of the euphemistically named Special Warfare and Reconnaissance Service whilst they underwent additional training. In truth, the SWRS were the British contingent of the planet's defence against extraterrestrial attackers, their combatants drawn from all of the United Kingdom's armed forces. Currently, there were only thirty people in the SWRS, and eighteen of those were administrative, diplomatic or support staff. Five more offworld units had been in training in Nevada, but they had been suspended from duty and returned to the UK or their units pending the outcome of the inquiry, in the process delaying or even cancelling their official induction into the SWRS. British involvement in the Stargate program was now being seen as a hindrance since the 434 Incident, and actively blocked by factions within the Pentagon.

Halverson held the SIG P226 pistol out in front of her awkwardly. Despite a reasonably comprehensive firearms course in Nevada she'd never had any kind of natural marksmanship, and Taylor knew that was one of the few points that had very nearly prevented her being cleared for offworld operations. In the end, on her third attempt she'd scraped through with the lowest possible passing grade and he'd had to fight to secure her place on his team based on her credentials, expertise and the high marks she got in the rest of the training, especially in light of her occasionally abrasive, fiery personality.

Now it looked like he would have to do it all over again.

"You're holding it wrong. No, not like that. That's better..." Taylor said.

"You didn't answer my question Dave."

"Slide the magazine in – bit more force than that."

"Dave!"

"Elise, try concentrating on the task at hand." he snapped. Halverson took a step back, and though she tried to hide it, her eyes widened – Taylor hadn't lost his temper once since she'd known him.

Seeing this reaction, he adjusted his tone to that of a friendly but firm warning.

"Listen to me. We're not exactly flavour of the month right now, as if you hadn't guessed. The Pentagon's bitching at Whitehall, who're bitching at us, and probably with good reason. We are being kept out of the loop because there's an excellent chance we'll never be allowed near the SGC again, ever. What that means for you is that if you ever want to go through the Stargate again, you need to be recertified for basic firearms operation, and you're right back to square one as far as that's concerned. I'm not asking you to become a marksman, or a soldier, just to prove you can defend yourself, a teammate or an ally should you encounter a hostile. Right now you'd barely be allowed to work at Area 51 again – you've actually got worse."

"But I haven't fired a gun since training!"

"That's no damn excuse. It should come back to you immediately. Elise, you've actually had firearms training – British and American Special Forces instructors, no less. So do you want to tell me how the hell you're a worse shot now than people I've seen who have never picked a gun up before? Stop moaning, drop your baggage and fire the damn gun!"

Halverson was silent, but Taylor could hear her fuming.

She squeezed the trigger and the P226 pistol jerked wildly in her hands.

"Well, it's a start. You actually put a bullet through the target board. Now try hitting the body." Taylor said, staring at the hole in the white part of the printed target, inches from any part of the mock attacker.

"Oh c'mon! Why the hell do I even need to learn this weapon? You said yourself a 9mm bullet does nothing to a Fenrir. You also said that you're going to push for P90s for Kelly, Martin and myself – why do I need to use a pistol if I'm going to have a bloody machine gun? I can just spray bullets on automatic with that!" she protested. He could hear the frustration in her voice – three hours on the firing range and she had barely managed to land more than three satisfactory shots per magazine, and she knew this was bad.

Calmly, Taylor grasped the pistol and removed it from her grip, quickly checking the safety and moving it away from her.

"Firstly, if you wave a gun around like that, loaded or not, you'll immediately fail, and possibly shoot somebody – like me, or yourself. Secondly, there is no way in hell you'll get a P90 if you can't even prove a basic level of competence with a pistol. And thirdly...they are personal defence weapons, not 'bloody machine guns' – emptying the magazine on full auto whilst waving the gun around is not normally a viable tactic outside of Steven Seagal films. Elise...this is important. This is really important. Given what happened on P7T-434, there is no guarantee whatsoever we'll ever be allowed anywhere near the Fenrir again. Hell, there's no guarantee we'll even be allowed offworld, if indeed we're actually cleared to return to duty at the SGC."

He stopped, hoping this might sink in. He picked up the unused P226 in front of him, slotted in a full magazine and pulled the slide back, chambering the first round.

"Do you remember your preliminary report? 'Dr. Halverson – ineffective in combat; possible operational liability'. I fought tooth and nail to get you on this team, but you won't be on it for much longer unless you can consistently shoot an attacker in the chest. And it won't just be you affected if you don't make it. The whole team will suffer. I could potentially be relieved of command if the review board think I was wrong to pick you and the rest of the team will be broken up and reassigned. Please, for God's sake...just listen. Just try. You've done it once before, you can do it again. All you have to do is this."

He aimed the pistol and fired six times in one fluid movement. The target in front of him had six closely grouped holes.

"Do that and we have a chance. That's really not much, is it?"

"Says you..."

* * *

"Welcome back, Major Taylor. We were beginning to think we wouldn't see you again."

Peterson Air Force Base was a welcome sight and the crisp Colorado air a very welcome taste, especially after more than eight hours sat on a Tristar. RAF Brize Norton was far behind them and the Ministry of Defence review a distant memory.

"Hello Major Davis." Taylor shook the proffered hand as Captain Maddock and the rest of his team descended the steps, saluting. "Don't you mean you were beginning to _hope_ you wouldn't see us again?"

Davis smiled politely.

"Some might think that, but not everyone, and not me. Although I will say this - you've certainly made my job...interesting, for the last few months. There are a few at the SGC you should perhaps avoid for a while – I'll give you a heads up in the car – but overall they're with you. You have most of the IOA and a couple of Pentagon generals backing you, for one thing." the Pentagon liaison said, leading the way to the staff van parked on the tarmac.

"Yeah, with us right up until they send us through the gate to a planet without a DHD. Or oxygen." Halverson said.

"It's not quite that bad, doctor. You wouldn't be back here otherwise."

"We're back here to work at the SGC? I thought I was here to collect my stuff..." Jarvis said. Llewellyn prodded him in the back.

The drive to Cheyenne Mountain went by quickly. Davis and Maddock took turns updating them on various events, bringing them up to speed with the current state of Stargate operations and IOA decisions. Little had changed, and Taylor got the distinct feeling a lot was being left out. Some gut instinct told him not to question this.

"Just remember, you're basically on probation." Maddock said. "The Pentagon has given you clearance for offworld operations, but you'll probably be back to bog standard survey missions...for the time being."

* * *

Taylor's joy at being back in the SGC rapidly evaporated as he entered the briefing room, closely followed by the rest of his team. Seated at the head of the table was the SGC's commanding officer, and he didn't look happy.

"I trust you won't be disappearing for four months after this mission?" Before any of them could respond to Landry's terse and somewhat acidic greeting, the general continued.

"I don't mind telling you that you have been a monumental pain in the ass the last few months, and you aren't the most popular people on this base right now. We lost a lot of good people on P7T-434, and while that goes with the job and not everyone blames you, it didn't help matters that our newest team was spirited to DC and back to England for an inquiry. And then, as if that wasn't enough, we lost SG-26 a month later to the same inquiry, just as we're recovering from major personnel loss, and just as we discover we need every warm body we can get to hunt for the escaped Fenrir. In other words - I hope this isn't going to become a habit with you Brits."

"Believe me, we hope so too sir." Taylor said.

Landry leaned back in his chair, placated for the moment, but just barely.

"To be honest, I'm torn. Most of the Pentagon was dead set against having you back, but the IOA is behind you. They're of the opinion that you may have given us early warning of a grave new threat in the galaxy. That accounts largely for why you're sitting in front of me now, and not dodging AK-47 rounds back in Afghanistan." Landry said. Halverson shifted uncomfortably.

"And what's your position General?" Nesbitt asked. Dealing with a top secret Pentagon / IOA inquiry and a top secret Ministry of Defence review board had noticeably improved his confidence when dealing with high ranking military officers.

"Me?" Landry laughed. Taylor was getting sick of generals laughing humourlessly. "To some extent Doctor, I find myself agreeing that you are not to blame, although I'll be damned if I'll accept you went about it the right way. Your conduct got a lot of people killed and unleashed a new kind of hell on the galaxy. But most of all, I'm just glad I won't be accountable for you for much longer."

Taylor glanced at the other members of his team sat at the table – he wasn't the only one who found that last sentence unsettling. However, before any of them could question the odd choice of words on Landry's part, the General continued.

"Frankly, I'm sick of having to tiptoe around both you damn teams, having to prioritise you and keep you out of harm's way at the same time, to accede to your government's thinly veiled demands regarding your treatment, your equipment and your personnel purely because Major General Sir Dick Bullock has a few buddies in the IOA who can make life difficult for me if I don't do as I'm politely told."

Taylor breathed deeply, but before he could begin his response, Landry continued, his voice and mannerisms growing more irate with every second.

"And where did that get me? Writing letters of condolence to the families of twenty-one marines and airmen, because you couldn't wait. As of today, the gloves are off, and if you continue to work here, you will not receive special treatment of any kind, you will not get a hotline to General Bullock every time something doesn't go your way. And I'm well aware of your opinion of our plan to find the Fenrir, Major Taylor."

Who the hell had let that slip, Taylor wondered. He tried to cast his mind back to when he had said it, a simple offhand comment, and who might have heard it – or overheard it.

Taylor fixed Landry with a glare that he knew was bordering on insubordination.

"Permission to speak freely, sir."

"By all means Major, go ahead."

Taylor took a deep breath again – he might just be taking his life, or at least his career, in his hands with what he was about to say.

"After four months of non-stop searching with every team this base has, every team and Puddle Jumper on loan from Atlantis, and every 304 in the fleet – not to mention enlisting the Tok'ra and some of the Jaffa – you haven't found a single useful trace of the Fenrir that escaped, just a dozen random worlds with massacred populations. Now add in the help from the Jaffa, and the relatively small search area you've set yourself – you don't think it's odd you haven't found so much as a hair? And just to clarify – this has nothing to do with General Bullock or his agenda, neither of which I am particularly fond of, sir. This is my idea and nothing else."

Landry looked ready to get up from the table.

"If you're anywhere near a point Major, I suggest you head for it. My patience is running thin."

"Fine. Sir – the entire search for the Fenrir in its current form is a waste of time and resources. Judging by the speed they got their ships through that gate, they've been planning this for God knows how long, so they aren't going to be making elementary mistakes. This is too important to them for them to risk being discovered and destroyed before they can do anything."

"And what would you have us do, call off the search? Just sit back while they ravage a couple of dozen more worlds?"

"No…just re-evaluate what you're doing." Halverson said. "They are hunters. Highly evolved, very intelligent hunters. What little we've seen of their behaviour, their civilisation, even their physiology – they are consummate predators. So it's a fair bet they know how to think like their prey, to hunt by getting inside the heads of their quarry. And it's also a reasonable assumption that they're intelligent enough to use that knowledge and turn it on itself to evade their own hunters with frightening proficiency when it becomes necessary. Combine that with their natural stealth, and Dave's right – they are not going to let themselves be found. They will purposely play you and all your assets, throw you off their scent with every trick they've got. They will do the opposite of what you would expect at every turn, and they won't let you get near them unless it benefits them."

Landry smirked.

"So how do you explain this?" he said, picking up a remote and pointing it at the large display. The screen was now showing shaky camera footage of a cold, wintry world. In the immediate, blurry foreground was a ridge of snow that the camera was peeking over, but of far greater importance was what lay in the distance. In a flat plain of snow, bordered by pine forests and grey rock, hundreds of miserable humans, some bloodied, all exhausted and terrified, were herded by a few dozen Fenrir to a point off-screen. The camera panned slowly and jerkily, accompanied by the deep breathing of the camera operator, to show where the humans were being herded.

It was a structure, or at least it was the beginnings of one, a squat, solid bunker of gleaming silver metal and dark grey concrete, and its shape was disturbingly familiar. After a minute of zooming in and examining the building, the footage cut abruptly to show a different area, the time stamp leaping twenty-six minutes. Now what looked like a cave entrance was being guarded by two more wolves brandishing their cruel looking battle-axe shaped flechette rifles. It immediately became clear, as more bloodied, exhausted, filthy looking humans exited, hauling crude carts filled with shattered grey rock with faint silver seams, that it was a mine. As the operator zoomed in, the view showed a Fenrir turning and looking straight at the camera. Muffled, urgent voices with definite American accents accompanied the violent shaking of the camera and the cessation of the footage.

"That was taken by SG-15 two months ago. Only three members made it back alive – Captain Tomlinson died two days later. When we returned to that world, we found evidence that Colonel O'Bannon had been surrounded and promptly committed suicide with a grenade not far from the gate. Not surprising, given what we think the Fenrir do with humans. There is much more footage, but I wouldn't recommend watching some of it on a full stomach – suffice to say, SG-15 also found evidence of mass graves and mutilated bodies, and Dr Nguyen is still receiving counselling. Our experts say this video has given us a huge insight into Fenrir behaviour and even social structure. But what's most significant though is where this footage was taken."

To emphasise his point, the General got up and stood next to the display, then pressed a button on the remote. The image changed now to a computer rendered map of the Milky Way galaxy, with the location of the Fenrir Prison highlighted by a tiny red circle right on the edge. The image zoomed in on the circle, which became a translucent sphere, throwing the stars around it into finer detail – several dozen of them were picked out with smaller red dots, and Taylor guessed these signified worlds hit by the Fenrir. A line pointed to one of the red dots close to the edge of the prison, accompanied by the text PK4-NM7.

"Twenty-four light years from the prison. Now tell me our search is useless."

Taylor was confused, and didn't hide it – he'd been so convinced the Fenrir would operate covertly for some time before making sneak raids, and yet here they were operating blatantly, enslaving humans and using them to work a naquadah mine. He'd had a strong gut reaction, and he'd learnt long ago to listen to his gut. He resolved to press his point.

"We still need to know more about them. First rule of warfare, know thine enemy."

"Major, if you're volunteering your team to go back to PX2-95Y for an intelligence gathering mission, you're more than welcome, but don't expect any support from this facility once you're through the gate. Short of that, I don't see how we're going to get more intelligence until we actually find the Fenrir who escaped. Everything we have came from your mission to 95Y, the battle on 434, and the observations of SG-15. In all three cases, we suffered the loss of experienced personnel. Now unless you have anything truly useful to contribute instead of criticising how we go about things, I recommend you leave and get ready for your mission tomorrow. Whether you like it or not, your team is now part of the search. Dismissed." Landry said brusquely as he stood, pushed the chair back and walked swiftly to his office. Behind him, SG-27 were getting to their feet and preparing to leave muttering to each other in irritable and confused tones – this was hardly the return they had envisaged. Once inside his office, he slammed the door and sat down in his preferred chair.

"You know Hank, he _is_ right."

"Save it. It doesn't help me that you're on his side." Landry said, without looking at the person sat on the opposite side of his desk, instead focusing intently on a mission report.

"Ah come on. He did what was right. If it helps, I would have done the same."

"Trust me, it doesn't help. Look, I don't want to hear it Jack. I'm still not happy that you pushed so hard to get them back. Those Brits have caused havoc with this command."

"Yes, but they've done it so politely…" General O'Neill said lightly. "Besides, you've been complaining about the personnel shortage for months. Without Taylor and Hamilton's teams reinstated, the British government would never let you put the other five SG teams they've got back in training in Nevada into rotation. Turnbull wasn't happy when they were pulled, given how close to active duty they came – that's why he campaigned so hard for SG-27's return."

Landry shook his head. Today of all days, he did not want to deal with Jack O'Neill's warped sense of humour and reality, no matter how right he was.

"Jack –" he began. Arguing with his friend and superior officer was not something he wanted to be doing right now, especially given how tired he was.

"Hank."

"Was there something else, or is this just another excuse to get out of Washington?"

"Actually…yes. To the something else, that is, not the other thing…and you'll be happy to know it's connected to what Major Taylor just said. The _Apollo_, _Odyssey_ and _General Hammond_ won't be available for the Great Wolf Hunt or SG team back-up tomorrow, so you might want to send out a memo…or something. Tell the kids not to get into any trouble that might require, say, beaming or orbital strikes for a couple of days." O'Neill said, brushing some imaginary lint off the leg of his uniform.

Landry finally looked up, perplexed. Three BC-304s unavailable – this must be something big.

"Can you tell me why, or do I have to guess?"

"I'll give you a clue. The IOA signed off on Carter's plan."

"Please tell me you're joking."


	3. Chapter 3

His foot slid out of the wormhole, and touched P1J-9F0's rocky, solid ground. He walked slowly forward towards the painfully bright daylight he could see outside the cave entrance. As he neared the mouth of the cave, he whistled softly to himself, and for a minute he allowed himself to just stand and look, taking in the scenery and the sensation. Behind him, the gate gulped five more times as the rest of his team exited. Almost as soon as he was through the wormhole, Nesbitt began to moan about the darkness of the cave and Jarvis began to moan about Nesbitt's moaning.

SG-2's report hadn't lied one bit, and Taylor had to hand it to the locals – they knew how to impress. The Stargate had been strategically placed in a shallow cave high up the mountain, the DHD in a discrete alcove to its right, all dimly lit by a pair of flickering torches and the radiance of the wormhole. But directly ahead was the cave's mouth, coated with vines and bright green moss, and beyond that the ground dropped away sharply, giving way to a tantalising glimpse of what lay outside. It was all carefully calculated to afford visitors a spectacular and breathtaking view of this world as they left the gate.

"My God. It's so beautiful..." Halverson murmured as she followed him, unknowingly voicing his own thoughts and shielding her eyes from the brilliant sunlight. She took a step back from the cliff edge.

Nesbitt and Jarvis stopped moaning as all of them moved to savour the spectacular view and simply the experience of being offworld again. This was not something to be taken lightly, because they all knew they had come close to being ejected from the Stargate Program entirely.

"I've waited four months for this...and it hasn't disappointed." Taylor muttered. Halverson smiled before shrugging off her rucksack and extracting a British military issue bush hat.

Ahead and far beneath them, dense alien jungle filled the valley floor so completely it could have been mistaken for a frozen emerald ocean, spreading for miles in every direction and punctuated by occasional islands of grey stone. It climbed high up the blue-grey mountains flanking it on most sides, a field of vivid greens pierced with grey peaks. Scattered throughout were what appeared to be gigantic white, yellow and red flowers sprouting from the jungle canopy, while above it all a perfect, cloudless bright blue sky played host to two dazzling yellow suns and a much smaller and dimmer red one.

"How high up are we?" Nesbitt asked, already wiping sweat off his forehead and trying to find his sunglasses. The Stargate shut down behind him.

Taylor walked casually to the edge and peered over.

"About a mile." he said, eyeing the sheer grey cliff and the unbroken drop into jungle, and watching a small piece of rock break away from under his foot and fall silently. "It's hard to tell – those trees look huge."

"Isn't this a bit hot and stuffy for one mile up?" Nesbitt said, staring pointedly at the tropical looking vines and flowers around them.

"For Earth, maybe. SG-2's report says 9F0 is a lot closer to its sun, has lower gravity and much more oxygen. The MALP confirms that." Llewellyn said, glancing at the hardened military PDA that kept him in contact with the SGC's probe, now sat precariously close to the edge of the cliff.

Nesbitt squinted against the harsh sunlight as he rolled the sleeves of his tropical DPM shirt. He looked slightly awkward in camouflage at the best of times, but in the heat and humidity of a jungle, he looked plain ridiculous.

"Remind me what we're doing here?" he asked.

"You wouldn't be admitting to not paying attention to the briefing would you Martin?" Halverson said casually, adjusting her bush hat.

"What briefing?! We'd been on duty for three minutes before Landry told us to gear up. Our briefing consisted of him talking over his shoulder as he walked down the corridor!"

Taylor sighed. Ideas flitted through his head. Maybe he could say Nesbitt underestimated the local gravity and slipped off the cliff...

"Standard tactical reconnaissance sweep. We check the area out, make contact with the locals, ask if they've seen any foul tempered eight foot werewolves recently, leave our business card and ask them to give us a call if they do and then head home. Couldn't be simpler."

"You don't sound convinced." Halverson said.

"I'm not. I think the whole damn search is a waste of time, but I follow my orders. Besides, don't forget we're basically on probation. We screw up now and the Pentagon will kick us out of the Stargate program – and the country – so fast and so hard we won't need a Tristar to get back to Britain – we'll be bouncing down Brize Norton's runway on our arses. We've got to consider ourselves grateful the MoD got us back in at all. Even if it did take four bloody months..."

Halverson glanced at Taylor, frowning. Ever since the terrifying incident with the Fenrir on P7T-434, he'd been acting differently. The protracted battle between the UK's Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defence had taken its toll on all of them as they waited to hear what the verdict was, but Taylor seemed to be taking it personally. She found it both reassuring and worrying to see him reacting this way – it proved he was human after all, but the fact he was reacting at all rather than being the normally unflappable commanding officer she'd come to know worried her.

"Right, let's get moving. We've got twelve hours here, and it looks like we'll be spending a lot of that walking." Taylor barked.

As the team moved off down the worryingly narrow, unfenced path that hugged the cliff edge, Moffatt hung back. She bent down at the cave mouth, face screwed up in puzzled concentration.

"Sir? Before we go...what do you make of this?"

As the team reversed and headed back, Taylor tried to work out what his eagle eyed medic had spotted this time. He'd learnt that Corporal Moffatt possessed keen eyesight and a talent for observation that put his SAS honed eyes to shame, and she rarely pointed out anything inconsequential.

As he drew closer, he began to wonder if this would be one of those rare occasions. Moffatt was staring at a scrape in the mouth of the cave.

"It looks like something big came out of the Stargate at high speed, and scraped the wall here. Look, you can see how far the debris got thrown." she said, indicating the small stone fragments scattered across the path.

"Puddle Jumper?" Llewellyn asked.

"No...no, I don't think there are any operating in the area. And we wouldn't be sent to a world already checked by Jumper anyway." Taylor said, frowning. There were only two possibilities he could think of, and neither was appealing.

"Uh...I hate to say it, but there was a Wraith Superhive over Earth a few weeks back – and it did have a Stargate on board. Could it have offloaded some Darts when it arrived in the Milky Way?" Llewellyn said uncertainly. Before Taylor could answer, Jarvis spoke.

"It's a possibility, and the SGC's been looking into that, but so far it looks good."

Nesbitt bent down to examine the scrape closely.

"I don't think this was made by a Wraith ship. This rock is solid granite, and Darts are not the most robust vessels the SGC's encountered. There would almost certainly be visible organic debris, even if it was a scrape, and there is none. And if it was a Puddle Jumper, I'd expect there to be metal filings, maybe even green fragments. Besides, there's one thing I don't like about this scrape. It is completely smooth, and slightly glassy."

"Meaning?" Jarvis asked.

"Meaning this wasn't a blunt impact with a metal surface, or a chitinous, bony...whatever the hell the Wraith grow their Darts out of either. This happened as a result of an encounter with a very high power, perfectly smooth energy field. Like a shield."

Taylor grunted in annoyance. There was only one type of vehicle that he was aware of that could fit through a gate and had strong shields as standard.

"I was really hoping you weren't going to say that."

---

Close up, the trees were even taller than Taylor had thought. They dwarfed sequoias and giant redwoods easily, yet didn't share the pillar like design of those terrestrial giants. In this alien jungle, somewhat aided by the lower gravity, the branches twisted and intertwined, dangling curtains of vines and covered in creepers sprouting ornate flowers a metre across. Huge buttressed roots spread out, crawling and flowing over rocks as big as houses like giant snakes frozen in time.

"Reminds me of the Cambodian jungle..." Taylor said quietly as they walked the trail.

"I didn't know you'd been on holiday to Cambodia." Halverson said absently, fanning herself in the tropical heat and gazing at the odd-looking vegetation lining the track. The air was thick and incredibly humid, to the point that only the high oxygen levels prevented it from being almost unbreathable. The light-headedness that had hit most of them some time after coming through the gate had gone away quickly as they descended the mountain into the mist filled realm of the jungle floor.

"I wasn't there on holiday."

Halverson looked at him quizzically, but he'd already moved off. He barely seemed fazed by the heat, the humidity, the intense daylight or the brief and uncharacteristic insight into his past – in fact, Halverson decided, he seemed particularly distracted today. She expected him to be grinning at their first mission since returning to the SGC. She decided to question him on it.

"So what can we expect from the settlement?" Taylor asked quickly, a subtle facial expression making it clear that she shouldn't even think about asking about his momentary slip of the tongue, or his past in general.

"Oh...well, going by SG-2's report, there are around twelve thousand people in this town. The locals seem to be directly descended from an ancient South American civilisation, the Norte Chico, also known as the Caral or Caral-Supe that existed thousands of years ago on Earth. They've advanced a bit since then; they're up to approximately fifteenth or sixteenth century Europe tech level. Whichever Goa'uld transplanted them here apparently abandoned them a few hundred years ago – there's a suggestion it may have been Apophis posing as their Staff God. What's surprising is that the report says that while the settlement was very friendly and welcomed the Ori plague vaccine, they possessed very formidable warriors and defences."

"Why's that surprising?" Taylor said. Halverson couldn't tell whether he was disinterested, preoccupied, or both.

"Because no evidence of weapons, war or anything remotely military has been found at any of the Norte Chico archaeological sites on Earth."

"Maybe being abducted by an alien snake posing as a god and dumped on a weird jungle planet to serve as slaves taught them to fight."

"Man, it's hotter than hell." Llewellyn said, adjusting his jungle cap. The MALP had told them enough about local conditions that the entire team had come through the gate wearing thin, lightweight jungle gear, and the environment hadn't disappointed. All of them were sweating profusely, their clothes saturated with perspiration and the sheer humidity.

"Is it me, or is the air not as stuffy as it, uh...feels it should be?" Jarvis said.

"That would be the thirty-three percent oxygen atmosphere. And the gravity here is around sixty-three percent of Earth's. Combine that with the bright daylight, abundant water and high temperatures, and you can see why the trees grow taller than sequoias. Oh, on a side note, this is an indigenous, independently evolved jungle that's probably unique to this planet, not a result of terraforming, so I've no idea what animals we might encounter. SG-2 didn't report anything, but I'd expect big insect-like creatures though." Moffatt said.

"Big insects? Why them?" Halverson said nervously.

"Well, triassic era Earth had a thirty percent oxygen atmosphere, and one hundred percent gravity. And those are the two biggest factors determining a terrestrial arthropods size. Here, where there's more oxygen, much less gravity, and more heat, arthropods might be the top of the food chain. And the size of those flowers would seem to support that argument." Moffatt said. Jarvis couldn't tell if she was oblivious to Halverson's discomfort, or if she was all too aware and enjoying it immensely.

"Yes, but how big did they get back then?" Halverson pressed.

"Well...Meganeura was a dragonfly with a three foot wing span, and Euphoberia was a three foot long centipede. But they'll probably be much bigger here."

"Cool, bees the size of bears!" Llewellyn said happily.

Halverson shivered and placed her hand over her holstered pistol.

"Once you're done winding our anthropologist up, corporal, could you resume keeping an eye out for more evidence the Fenrir have been here?" Taylor called.

"Uh, sir, I wasn't joking. There's a distinct possibility we'll encounter large arthropods in an environment like this."

"Oh. Well...let's just keep moving and hope we don't. If we do...I'll put Nesbitt on point."

"Very funny." the strained reply came from the back of the group. The physicist muttered something inaudible to Taylor, and Llewellyn laughed.

"You know what," Nesbitt called. "I wish my son could see this – he's really keen on jungles and rainforests. Mainly because he's bloody obsessed with insects and spiders."

"So he's not a junior physicist then?" Moffatt asked. Nesbitt laughed.

"God no. He's always taken after his mother – one of the reasons she and I split. If it crawls, bites, lays eggs and stings, he's all over it. And if it lives in dark pits in the Amazon rainforest, has more legs than he's got fingers and can kill ten men with one bite, even more so."

"You must miss him."

"I do, but I hear from him – and her – most days, and I'm happy enough knowing they're both happy. You know he actually goes with her now when she's doing her research? He's doing GCSE English History in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest."

Up ahead, the trail twisted sharply to the right, and even though the light under the canopy was surprisingly bright, the light coming around the corner suggested they were near a large clearing in the jungle.

While the canopy was thin enough to let a great deal of sunlight through, the trunks and branches were dense enough to prevent them seeing anything through the trees.

As expected, the trail gave way to a clearing.

"Oh no." Moffatt murmured.

"Sir? I think we've found our evidence." Llewellyn said sombrely.

---

It had once been a large town surrounded by a fifty foot wall made of expertly carved granite. Now it was an area of scorched earth inhabited by mounds of ash, rubble and furiously burning wood piles fuelled by the oxygen rich air. A few buildings looked relatively unscathed, but it was obvious there had been ten times as many beforehand, all reduced to burnt out squares of land and shattered stone.

Several corpses lay in the street – the bodies of unfortunate souls who had quite obviously died very violent deaths. An even smaller number of survivors wandered around, dazed and injured, some cradling limp bodies and others simply sobbing.

It was clear that the entrance had once been a marvel of ornate, intricate stonework. Now it was a ruined mass of shattered granite. Standing amidst the blackened rubble was a boy of no more than thirteen, his skin darkened by soot and dried blood, his clothes torn and filthy and his eyes wide, tired and far older than they had any right being. It was evident to the whole team he had seen things that even an adult should never have to witness.

"Halt!" he shouted, his voice breaking with suppressed fear and uncertainty. Only now did they realise he was brandishing a sword at them. The weapon had once been an exquisite and well made specimen, the pride of any warrior. Now it was chipped, its tip bent and it was clearly far too large and fine a weapon for the boy, evidenced by his strained two-handed grip and the blade's bobbing motion.

"What is it?" a wavering voice croaked from behind the remains of the wall. Seconds later, an elderly man of at least seventy hobbled into view, his right side support by an improvised crutch and his head and left hand crudely bandaged, a familiar design of sword dangling from his belt and an ornate weapon resembling a crossbow held limply in his right hand. Despite his injuries and apparent frailty, there was a hint of former ferocity, a spirit of blood and flame in the man's eyes, and the suggestion that while the body may be aged, the old man hadn't lost any of his marbles and would still put up a decent fight if it was required of him. If he fired the crossbow, he would be unlikely to miss any member of Taylor's team at this range, and the major didn't doubt the broad headed bolt would deal nasty damage to whomever it hit, even with ballistic armour vests.

"Invaders, great uncle. Come to finish us. You'll have to get past me first!" the boy shouted, obviously not believing his own bravado.

Taylor glanced at his team members. Llewellyn was tensed, and while he hadn't raised his carbine, he was gripping it in a way that suggested he didn't need much incentive to do so and fire. Jarvis did have his Minimi raised though. Nesbitt had his hand on his pistol.

"Jarvis, weapon down. Now."

Reluctantly, the marine lowered the weapon. Llewellyn relaxed slightly. Seeing this in his peripheral vision, Taylor calmly raised his hands palms outward, leaving his carbine slung.

"No, we're not invaders. We're explorers – we came through the Stargate, the, uh, Chappa'ai? Others like us came here several years ago and gave your people medicine to overcome a plague."

"Yes…yes, I remember them. It was kind of them to do so. We owe them a debt." The elderly man said, visibly relaxing to the point that he slumped against the makeshift crutch. The boy began to do likewise.

"We can help you again. My people can send doctors with other medicines, and food, blankets, tents…if you want them to."

The old man's eyes were weary now, the fiery spirit now a cooling ember. Like the boy, he too had seen too much. He stared at Taylor for several seconds, before eventually nodding weakly, a faint smile curling his lips.

"Lieutenant, get back to the gate and request medical teams and disaster aid."

"Yes sir." Llewellyn said before turning and sprinting back along the track.

"Thank you." The old man croaked, lowering himself gingerly to a sitting position on a particularly large piece of rubble. "I am Quoss. This is my great-nephew Prass. Please, do what you can for my people."

Moffatt was already moving towards Quoss, her medical kit opening. As soon as he saw what she intended to do, he waved her off, insisting there were far more needy people within the city. Taylor nodded solemnly at the man, guessing he had once been a great warrior, and ushered his team through the entrance.

The view from a distance had been bad; close up it was much worse. A site of fire and carnage, the whole scene screamed of loss and terror.

Halverson was already walking towards a survivor and trying to converse with him. The man seemed to be in deep shock, and although covered in blood, Taylor didn't think he had more than superficial injuries.

"Kelly?" Halverson said. The medic was already rushing forwards and opening her medical kit.

Sitting the man down gently, she began applying dressings to the numerous small wounds on his head, arm and leg.

"Corporal, can he understand me?" Taylor asked quietly. Jarvis silently signalled to Nesbitt that they should leave and try to help some of the others. Nesbitt nodded and followed the Royal Marine sergeant towards a small group of people attempting to move charred timbers from the ruins of a building. It looked like they were trying to reach somebody trapped underneath.

"Yes, I think so. Don't expect him to be too coherent though. He's in shock, but I don't think it's from his injuries." Moffatt replied.

"Sir?" Taylor said as clearly, loudly and sympathetically as he dared, moving the sling of his carbine so it was at his side before hunching down in front of the man. "We're here to help. I've sent one of my men back to the Stargate to request medical aid and basic supplies. Can you tell me what happened here?"

The man had a thousand yard stare that never wavered even as Moffatt moved to secure a gauze pad over a small gash above his right eye.

"They...they...they came, and they took them. My family, they took my family!" he stammered, his expression wavering between dazed and hysterical.

"Who did? Who came?" Taylor asked.

"They took my family, and I hid! They took so many people, and killed so many more, and I hid. My Gods, how many did they kill?" the man said. It was evident he was on the verge of hysteria.

"Sir – listen to me." Taylor said, slowly placing his hands on the man's shoulders and speaking in a calm, even tone. "I want to help, in any way I can, and I know this is difficult for you, but I'm sorry – I need to know who came and took your family. Can you describe them?"

The thousand yard stare was broken. The man's eyes, wide with remembered terror, stared deep into Taylor's.

"They cut through our best warriors and tossed them aside like playthings even as they rained fire and lightning on us...nothing stood before them, not even the combined might of the city guard, and yet they were so few!" he hissed, shaking violently.

"Who were they?" Taylor pressed, raising his voice.

The man stared at Taylor with crazed eyes as if the answer was obvious, and shouldn't be spoken. His eyes creased and his lips began to tremble, and it looked like he was about to break down, his mind caving in under the weight of everything that had happened. He gripped Taylor's arms, almost as if to anchor himself. He whispered hoarsely.

"The wolves that walk like men!"

---

Taylor exhaled violently as he stamped down the ramp, the Iris grating shut behind him. He wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"I'm gonna say its not good news then Major?"

Landry was walking through the door to the Gate room even as Jarvis exited with a hasty salute. The rest of SG-27 would be heading for their post-mission check-ups.

"They were slaughtered. The local militia were completely outclassed…and then eaten, from what we can tell. They've been reduced to pressing kids and crippled pensioners into service as sentries. I'm sorry sir, it's another confirmed Fenrir attack going by the descriptions the locals gave us, and the couple of hundred trinium flechettes we dug out of the stonework. It looks like the trail has gone cold, yet again."

"Damn it."

Landry turned and began walking towards the control room. Taylor followed, handing his C8 carbine to an Airman. They had been the last team due back before the morning, and the SGC was getting ready for its night shift.

"SG-8 and SG-12 are giving the survivors what medical aid they can, but the society is virtually wiped out – they'll almost certainly have to be relocated and integrated into a new society. SG-2 reported almost twelve thousand people in that settlement three years ago. Now there are well under a thousand known survivors, the locals counted no more than a hundred wolves, and that's at the very most. Some of the more...coherent citizens said they think some people may have fled into the jungle, but it still looks like the Fenrir killed over nine thousand people there, and abducted a further thousand or so – God knows why – and left again. The rest are unaccounted for, and the whole massacre lasted little more than an hour."

Landry was already ascending the stairs to the briefing room and his office.

"I'm afraid there's more sir. Some of the ones who fled into the jungle returned – though not many – and described something worrying. They encountered more Fenrir there – but they weren't lying in wait to ambush those who fled, they were busy doing something else, and the locals described it as, well, looking for something. They seemed surprised to see humans out there. And Halverson says they have a local myth that's eerily familiar."

"Which is?"

"Evil wolves bound by magic, and their release heralding the end of the world. They've all but given up hope after seeing the Fenrir."

"Four months, and we still can't track down a single God damned wolf. I'm beginning to lose hope myself. I'm getting tired of reporting entire societies wiped out, and of telling the Pentagon that yet again we're too late to catch them. Report to the infirmary Major, I want a full debriefing at eleven hundred hours tomorrow morning. We need a break soon."

---

The office was small. Too small for Halverson's needs, but then she didn't rank particularly high on the SGC's priority list. Still, she decided, it was better than using her quarters – the Air Force had swiftly reassigned their apartments in Colorado Springs to the newest SG team out of Nevada the moment they left for England, and they were allegedly having enough trouble finding new accommodation to keep both SG-27 and SG-26 living on base. She had quickly formed the habit of leaving the door open almost perpetually to stave off claustrophobia which wasn't helped by the dim illumination offered by the single bulb, although that seemed standard practice for the SGC.

The computer took up a remarkable amount of space on the desk, but though Halverson was using the accursed machine more than she had ever used computers before – and finding it surprisingly useful, given the SGC's vast archaeological, anthropological and linguistic databases, and its unique resources and information – she found herself using her office walls more than anything.

On one side there was a large whiteboard, filled with manic green, red, blue and black scrawls featuring far too many exclamation marks and underlined sections, accompanied by haphazardly arranged photos and printouts barely held on by magnets and sticky tape.

The other walls were plastered with more photographs, as well as photocopies from books and pages upon pages of text straight from her laser printer. Anthropological and cultural reference books were open across half of the converted store cupboard.

"Holy crap…"

She grabbed for the phone, knocking it off the desk in the process.

Cursing vehemently enough to startle an SF walking past, she got up from her desk, retrieved the telephone and mumbled an apology to the airman.

She was dialling before she'd put the phone down.

"Martin! You busy? Good. I think I've got something, something _big_, but I may need to draft you in to do some legwork for me. Can you get down here now?"

Ten minutes later Nesbitt arrived, hands in pockets and an innocent, unassuming smile plastered across his face.

"So, what do you need me for?" he asked.

"Close the door. And sit down." She said tersely, without looking up, instead whipping her head between a textbook and her computer monitor.

"Uh…where?" he said, looking around for a second chair. The office was limited to a simple metal desk, a computer and a whiteboard. He gazed uncertainly at the worrying array and volume of documents plastered to the walls.

"Huh? Here, sit here!" she hissed impatiently, standing up from her own chair.

As Nesbitt sat in front of the computer, she leaned over his shoulder.

"I hate these damn things, and I need information that's more in your area of expertise to confirm something. Can you bring up everything that was found in the Asgard core about the Fenrir?"

Important information from the Asgard core was transferred to the SGC's computers on an as-needed basis – the current crisis had resulted in the entirety of the Asgard's knowledge about the Fenrir being made available to the SGC mainframe.

There was only a single search result.

"That's weird. The only thing we've got is an Asgard report on the Fenrir from twelve thousand years ago. They're not named…but they are described. Hang on – it says they've only got Bronze Age tech here." Nesbitt said, reading from the screen.

"Not significant. Humans on Earth were in the Bronze Age only five thousand years ago. They've had an extra five thousand years to develop, and while cultural and biological differences can slow or speed up a civilisation's development relative to others, they all stick to much the same timeline. Give or take a millennium."

"If you say – but their tech is worryingly advanced."

"What else does it say?"

"Uh…not much we didn't already know. 'Fierce, belligerent, and potentially very dangerous'. That's it."

Halverson chewed her lip.

"Okay…try this instead. Can you find out when the Asgard learned how to artificially form black holes?"

Nesbitt typed, and clicked. The information was present, but buried, called up months before for an entirely different reason.

"Okay, the Asgard core says…huh? It says they first learnt how to collapse any mass into a black hole…seven thousand years ago. That can't be right. We've dated the Asgard remains on 434, and the Gleipnir system. The Gleipnir system was established ten thousand years ago!"

Halverson smiled.

"Thank you. You've just about proved it."

---

Nesbitt hurried through the halls of the SGC. He could easily have given the news to the other five members of his team over the phone, but he felt this news really deserved to be delivered in person, so he'd resolved to tell the first team mate he found.

"Kelly – and Colin! Fantastic news! Carter's experiment failed spectacularly!" Nesbitt spluttered happily, scratching his beard in nervous excitement. The base gymnasium was sparsely populated at this time of day, but there were enough people there to give him a mixture of odd and angry looks. Carter was virtually untouchable, and a hero of the SGC to boot. Bad mouthing her was not a good move.

"Wait, no…I didn't mean it like that. Hell, she's the Goddess of Science, Patron Saint of Physicists." Nesbitt smiled apologetically to the concerned faces, before turning back to his team mates.

Moffatt looked quizzically at Jarvis, who shrugged and set the dumbbell down with a wince. Small angry pink lines dotted his arm and shoulder, scars from a cluster of Fenrir flechettes.

"Uh…that's nice." Moffatt said happily and cluelessly. More than most genius-level physicists, Nesbitt had a tendency to exist in a world of his own making.

Seeing their blank expressions, Nesbitt took stock of himself. He was panting, he was excited, and he was gabbling – if he'd met himself in this state, he concluded he would likely have responded in much the same way.

"Okay, all right, I should explain." He said, grinning.

"It's probably best. Look, I want to get coffee first – can this wait?" Jarvis said. It sounded like the heavily built Royal Marine commando was trying to be tactful and understanding, but a strong sense of menace pervaded his words.

"Caffeine's the last thing he wants in his state…" Kelly murmured. Jarvis grunted realisation and resigned agreement. Nesbitt continued.

"Look…remember the Asgard crystal that beamed in on the Fenrir world when Gareth was digging around inside the DHD? The one that quickly got spirited away to Area 51?"

Seeing sparks of realisation in the two otherwise blank faces, Nesbitt grinned again and continued.

"Well, the IOA was reluctant to do much with it precisely because it originated on a Fenrir planet and it might be a trap. Understandable, really. Now, since our little grey buddies mass seppuku-ed, the only Asgard terminals in existence to interface it with are on the cores in the 304 fleet, right? And the IOA are nothing if not painfully cautious – finding out what's on the crystal or what it does could have potentially cost them a battlecruiser…or deep space carrier…or battlecarrier, or whatever the hell they're calling those damn ships now. So Colonel Carter devised a plan to read the crystal to minimise any potential damage or losses in the event the crystal was a trap, and the IOA approved it. She had the _General Hammond_, the _Odyssey_ and the _Apollo_ fly out of the galaxy, into the void between the Milky Way and Pegasus, and stationed the _Odyssey_ and the _General Hammond_ a couple of light minutes off the _Apollo_'s port and starboard respectively. With me so far?"

The two vague nods were all he needed.

"Okay. So the _Apollo_ was rigged with subspace telemetry and communication feeds, and most of her crew was offloaded onto the two other ships. The Asgard core was disconnected as a precaution, but with Asgard tech that doesn't necessarily mean anything. If the crystal somehow took over the ship via the core, the Oddy and the Hammond could both give chase. It could detonate the hyperdrive, which is an eleven on the one to ten scale of bad things to happen on a starship, like a miniature supernova. If that were to happen, either the automatic kill switches would sever the physical connections with the hyperdrive, or the other two ships would have a good amount of time to escape, forewarned by the sudden termination of the subspace feeds. And if something else happened, the two ships would be able to gather sensor data or give assistance as necessary. If it transmitted a signal, the other ships might be able to jam it, for example."

"Okay…" Moffatt said.

"Well it failed. Do you know what happened when the tech interfaced the crystal?" Nesbitt said cryptically.

"Apparently not." Jarvis said.

"I said spectacularly earlier, but I meant it was spectacularly uneventful – and spectacularly good for us. They got an error message! Think of it, an Asgard core, one of the most advanced artefacts they ever produced, a phenomenally powerful and versatile computer, reacted to an Asgard crystal with an error message saying the information couldn't be understood. Like a computer file in the wrong format! And while that alone is fascinating – those cores can break virtually any encryption, understand any data – it means something even better for us."

Nesbitt waited for one of them to realise what he meant. As he was about to give up in exasperation and explain it to them, Moffatt's eyes widened.

"Holy cow…they went for it?"

"There isn't much choice now, especially in light of Elise's theory. Whatever it is."

"She still won't tell anybody?" Moffatt asked.

"Nobody – except Dave."

Jarvis looked from one to the other. It was bad enough barely being able to understand one of them, but having both of them sharing a secret that he didn't get was unbearable.

"So…what?" he prompted menacingly.

"Dave's plan. The IOA has agreed to let us find another Asgard terminal, one that might have a better chance of reading the crystal."

Jarvis was confused.

"Hang on. You just said the cores are like the last Asgard terminals…hell, the last Asgard anythings in existence. So where are we going to find one?"

Nesbitt beamed, grinning like an idiot, and Jarvis felt a sinking feeling. A physicist that happy was never a good thing in the Stargate program.


	4. Chapter 4

Sand spread underfoot as he exited the wormhole, and the intensely bright sunlight caught him off guard even through his shades. Sudden exposure to the planet's intense heat didn't help – stepping from the meticulously controlled climate of the SGC into this blinding furnace was disorienting. Taylor raised one hand to shield his eyes until they acclimatised, noting the unusual tang of the air.

Nesbitt stepped onto the planet, instantly shielding his eyes with his free hand. The other clutched the handle of a hardened, locking metal case, its strap slung around his neck and across his torso.

"You don't ever let that out of your sight Doctor. Lose it and the IOA will do something unspeakably nasty to us both." Taylor said.

"You don't think they'll dock our pay, do you?" Nesbitt gasped in mock-horror. Behind him, Halverson and Moffatt exited the wormhole.

"Holy cow…" Moffatt said, whistling as the brightness of the sky assaulted her senses.

"Well, you said you wanted to work on your tan Kelly." Halverson said. Behind her, Llewellyn stepped through the Stargate and gasped, immediately blinking furiously and rubbing his eyes.

"Gah! And now I can't see…great. Ah, crap." Llewellyn staggered off with his hands rubbing his eyes, desperately trying to get into shade to let them recover.

"I was sort of thinking two weeks in Miami, not three days under binary giants – wait, Lieutenant, watch out for the - "

Hearing Moffatt's warning, Taylor turned just in time to see the sun-blinded engineer stumble into the MALP parked ten metres from the Stargate. The loud crack of his knee as it smashed into the reinforced, angular metal of the old style probe was drowned out by his cry of pain and profuse and enthusiastic swearing. Instinctively he raised his injured leg – as he did, he became unbalanced and the loose sand gave way under his foot, tipping him over the machine. His body slammed into the irregular metal casing of the probe, winding him and scraping his face across the older probe's tracks, but gravity and his momentum carried him forward, his shin dragging across the same metal treads his face had just encountered. A second later and he was face down in a heap next to the gleaming device, swearing violently and hissing. Sighing, Taylor glanced around at the rest of his team. Nesbitt was belly-laughing uncontrollably, Jarvis was trying desperately not to do the same and Moffatt was sighing in exasperation while she moved towards the stricken engineer. Only Halverson remained straight-faced, but with a slight mask of concern. Taylor clicked his radio, checking the Stargate was still open.

"Sergeant Harriman, how long since Lieutenant Llewellyn stepped through the gate?"

"Mission clock says nine seconds, Major."

"Thought so. Nominate Lieutenant Llewellyn for the Mitchell Award, if you'd be so kind. I'm sure the base will want to know that the score is MALP 1, Engineer nil. Taylor out." He clicked the radio again just as the Stargate shut down. He could hear Harriman chuckling.

Halverson turned to him, perplexed and concerned.

"What the hell is the Mitchell Award?"

Taylor grinned, gesturing for Jarvis to come over.

"I'll let Jarvis explain. He knows more about it than anyone. Sergeant – an explanation of the Mitchell Award, if you please." He said, moving casually towards the malevolent MALP and its victim.

"The Mitchell Award is given to the holder of the base record for fastest acquired injury once through the Stargate in a non-combat situation, named after Colonel Cameron Mitchell of SG-1. Twelve seconds after stepping through the gate, he slipped on a patch of mud and slammed face first into a tree. Woke up five minutes later back in the SGC with a black eye and mild concussion, survey mission scrubbed. Apparently Dr Lam couldn't stop giggling."

Llewellyn was sat in the slight shade of the MALP, grimacing. Moffatt was tending to him none too gently. Taylor stood in front of the downed engineer.

"Three things, Lieutenant. First, congratulations, Dr Lam will give you your award once we get back, and I'm sure the rest of the base will be dying to know what happened. But don't worry, I'm sure Sergeant Jarvis will be happy to fill them in on the details." Taylor said, ignoring Llewellyn's groans – the humiliation was far more painful than his generally inconsequential injuries. "Second, because of your foul-mouthed outbursts, you owe ten quid to Comic Relief – or had you forgotten the agreement we all made? And third, next time I tell you to put sunglasses on before going through the gate, do so, or blindness will be the least of your worries. Corporal, I assume he's fit enough to continue?"

Moffatt studied Llewellyn before answering.

"Nothing serious, certainly nothing to affect the mission as far as I can tell. I'll keep an eye on him just in case." She answered.

Taylor nodded to himself and stepped back, scanning the landscape properly for the first time. P2C-355 was a desert, scorched and bleached by the action of two especially bright suns. Golden sand stretched to the shimmering horizon, and even though a light breeze sent sand skittering across the dunes, the heat was too intense for it to have any cooling effect. The Stargate itself seemed to have been partly uncovered by the vortex of the opening wormhole, with a large dune directly behind it and the lower chevrons on each side completely obscured by shifting sand. Returning his gaze to the area in front of the gate, he could make out what looked like a short, jagged mountain range, formed from golden brown rock far in the distance.

But most importantly, there was a very noticeable town around a mile away, a semi-ordered clump of square white buildings nestled in the dip between two particularly huge dunes backed with rock. It could have been a habitation straight out of North Africa, were it not for the huge twin suns blazing overhead.

"Right – that way, I think."

Nesbitt walked up to Taylor, concern registering on his face.

"Uh, Dave…wasn't the whole point of this mission to look for an Asgard facility under the Stargate, like on 434? So, you know, shouldn't we be staying here and looking for one?" he said.

Taylor turned to face Nesbitt, a hard expression noticeable on his face even with the sunglasses.

"Well, here's an idea. Walk up to the Stargate, stick your head through the hole, and see if there's an Asgard doohickey attached to the back of it like the one on 434. Llewellyn can stay with you. In the meantime, the rest of us are going down there." He said, pointing at the town.

"Right, everyone, listen up! We have three days here. Now, there is a town down there, and that almost certainly means people. Before we go digging around on an alien planet, I think it would be a good idea to check in with the locals, make our presence known, just in case they take exception to half a dozen strange looking people hanging around their gate and sticking probes into ground that, for all we know, is sacred to them. Who knows, they might even offer to put us up for a few nights, be able to offer us information or help in some other fashion…or they may need help. So we are heading to the town before we do anything else."

Nesbitt nodded, acknowledging Taylor's logic. At least he'd be able to work undisturbed – an important requirement, given just how much work lay ahead of him.

* * *

Halverson wiped her brow, grateful for the lightweight desert gear, but the large canteen on her hip still didn't feel like nearly enough water for an environment like this.

"I know it's a minor miracle compared to actually being on this mission, but how'd you convince them to give us these?" she said, indicating the P90 dangling in front of her. She held it lightly, trying to avoid making the polymer case of the compact weapon too sweaty in the intense heat.

"Wasn't hard, Elise. They know how tough the Fenrir are now, so they didn't take much convincing. Just try not to shoot yourself in the foot with it." Taylor said. Unusually, he didn't smirk when he said it.

After another minute, Halverson started up a new conversation, although her tone had changed to a more serious, almost conspiratorial one.

"Dave, there was something else I wanted to ask you, only I didn't think it would be appropriate to discuss it at the SGC. Do you get the impression something's happening that we're not being told about? Something big, and to do with us?"

Taylor took slightly longer than his usual thoughtful pause to respond.

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, when I suggested to the IOA we try P7T-434 for this mission, I was quickly shut up. You were in the meeting, you heard it. And then, suddenly, they give us permission to do this – no guards, no conditions, no representatives, it's not given to another team - what's going on?" she asked.

"I don't know, and truth be told, I don't like it either. If it's any consolation, you aren't the only one who's noticed it. Everybody else on the team has come to me with similar grievances, and I've noticed it myself. What Landry said the other day…something's definitely happening. Even Maddock gets tight lipped about it, and that worries me more than anything."

They walked for a while longer in uncomfortable silence, approaching the town. Taylor's radio crackled.

"-ajor. Ne-itt…you should –ow…-iation. It's –t bad. -nd the –argate…-ved." The garbled transmission was hard to interpret.

"Was that Llewellyn?" Halverson asked.

"I'm not sure." Taylor responded, before halting and clicking his radio. He spoke loudly and clearly.

"Lieutenant. Your transmission is breaking up. Repeat, your transmission is breaking up."

"-king up. Say –ain, all –ter…tenant."

Taylor shook his head, and turned to Jarvis.

"The radios shouldn't be having this much trouble – we're half a mile away. Sergeant, double time back to the gate, explain the situation. One of those two might come up with a solution, or at least a reason. If not, you're going to be playing messenger for a while. And make sure you note down everything Nesbitt says, or get him to do it – I know what you're like with tech stuff."

Jarvis grinned and jogged back to the Stargate.

"Iation…did he mean _rad_iation?" Halverson said.

"Possibly. Wouldn't be surprised with those suns. However, until we know, it's best not to think about it. Let's head down there." Taylor said.

Several minutes later, they entered the town. It was a cluster of a few dozen cube shaped adobe buildings of varying sizes. Already the population, all dressed in loose, flowing white robes and sand coloured head wraps, were gravitating towards the three oddly dressed strangers.

"Hi." Taylor said, raising his hand in greeting. The locals were still wary of them, but curiosity seemed to be winning. A middle-aged woman stepped forward, her robes and head wrap more elaborate than the others. By the way she carried herself and confidently strode up to Taylor, it was evident she was a figure of authority.

"Welcome to our town. My name is Alsa – I am the chieftain of this town. May I ask what brings you here, and how we may be of assistance to you?" she said.

"Thank you, Alsa. I'm Taylor. We're explorers, from a planet called Earth. As for what we're doing here, we're looking for something. Maybe you can –"

Taylor's radio hissed and he made an apologetic face. The woman looked momentarily startled at the sound coming out of the odd-little black box near his shoulder, as did the townspeople, but again this gave way to curiosity when Taylor grasped the device and spoke into it.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but we still can't hear you this end. Still nothing. Taylor out."

Seeing the reactions of the townspeople, he looked the woman in the face and shrugged.

"Don't worry, it's just a device, a piece of technology. It sends our voices through the air, so we can communicate over long distances. It's just not working properly at the moment, and the rest of my team are trying to contact me."

Despite her slightly glazed look, the woman nodded. The explanation would suffice, even if she didn't understand much of it.

"There are more of you here?"

"Yes, three men, near the Stargate, the Chappa'ai. One of them should be coming back soon. Incidentally, the land under the Stargate isn't sacred or anything is it?" Halverson said.

For the first time, the woman smiled.

"Sacred? No. The land all around is our livelihood, but none of it is sacred. You are welcome to do as you wish, and you are welcome to stay in this town. However, may I suggest we continue this interesting discussion somewhere dimmer and cooler?"

Taylor grinned.

"Best idea I've heard all day."

* * *

Jarvis, Llewellyn and Nesbitt entered the town to find it quiet and sparsely populated. The big sergeant nodded and smiled at the few people he saw, sliding his sunglasses on top of his head – the first sun had set half an hour before, and the second was beginning to slide below the horizon, easing the strain on his eyes. The cloying, intense heat had barely changed at all however, and the dip in daylight had shed more light on the mystery of the radio malfunction.

The townsfolk barely reacted to their presence, except by returning the Royal Marine's smiles and indicating a large building at the other side of the town square. He nodded again in gratitude and set off.

Inside, Taylor, Moffatt and Halverson were sat at a table, surrounded by plates of exotic and strangely appetising food, carafes of what looked like chilled, pure water, and townsfolk. Alsa and several other townspeople were sat at the other end of the table from Taylor. Music, laughter and the aromas of sweet spices and mouth-watering food filled the air.

"Hey!" Halverson said loudly as they entered.

"So, what did you find?" Taylor said, chewing a small piece of grey-brown meat and pleased to see Nesbitt was still carrying and clutching the case.

"I see it's been gruelling work for you as well then." Nesbitt muttered. Taylor raised his eyebrows and Moffatt chuckled. Shaking his head, Nesbitt continued. "Well, the radios are on the blink because of the atmosphere. There's a hell of a lot of electromagnetic interference – you should see the aurora outside. Anyway, we currently have less than half a mile's range on them, but Gareth thinks that can be boosted to maybe three miles if he can fiddle with them."

"Right." Taylor said, popping another morsel of meat into his mouth.

"There's nothing under the Stargate; no facility, no generator, no power feeds, and with good reason. It's been moved. Neither the gate nor the DHD can have been in that location for more than a few centuries by my guess."

"Well that makes things…interesting. I don't suppose you could shed some light on that Alsa?" Taylor said, looking across the table at the middle-aged woman.

"I had heard tales from my grandfather about how his grandfather saw the Chappa'ai being hauled across the desert with ropes to its present resting place. He said it used to be almost half a day's walk from this town, and because we are so dependent on it, it was moved."

"There you go. They're miners – they can't grow anything here, but there are massive deposits of iron and copper, and _maybe_ naquadah. They use the gate to trade the metals for food and other goods." Halverson said. Alsa nodded and smiled happily.

"Well I'm not bloody surprised they can't grow anything here. That's the other thing I had to say – the sand is radioactive."

"Told you!" Halverson exclaimed, flicking Taylor's shoulder. Nesbitt had a sneaking suspicion she'd partaken of the local beverages a little too enthusiastically, or else she'd been out in the sun for too long.

"Radioactive? How radioactive?" Moffatt asked with a concerned look.

"Huh? Oh, not much. Not enough to do us any damage unless we get the mad urge to eat the stuff – it's essentially background radiation, but high enough to inhibit all but the toughest plant life."

"All of which is inedible, by the way." Taylor added.

"What's interesting is why the sand is radioactive – it isn't naturally occurring from what I can tell. No evidence of pitchblende or any other radioactive minerals. Instead, the radioisotopes I found suggest it's more like the desert was heavily irradiated by a very energetic event a long time ago."

Taylor thought on this for a second.

"Solar flare? Something to do with the sun…suns anyway."

Nesbitt sat down at a space at the table, thanking the person who'd freed it up and sighing with relief. Jarvis and Llewellyn did likewise.

"Possibly. Something's still odd about it though, but I need to stop thinking about it to come up with the answer. At least, that's my excuse. Incidentally, the radioactivity of the desert, the huge quantities of magnetite and the electromagnetic properties of the atmosphere mean that any orbital scans would be incredibly suspect, in case you're thinking of calling in a 304 to find the Asgard facility."

Taylor shook his head.

"Nope. Don't want to bother the IOA or Landry if I can help it, given our tenuous employment. I had another idea. Alsa, you wouldn't happen to know where the Stargate used to be, before your great-great-grandfather saw it being moved?"

"I think so. But I don't recommend going there now. The desert is not a hospitable place at night, and it is easy even for experienced travellers to become lost – few are seen again."

* * *

Between the loose, shifting sand, the hidden rocks and the steep dunes, Taylor could see that the desert was hardly hospitable even in the light of day, and he could also see why her ancestors had eventually elected to move the gate closer to their settlement. Carrying mineral shipments over this terrain under those suns must have been hell, he surmised. He had ordered Llewellyn and Moffatt to remain at the settlement – he didn't want to commit the entire team to an exhausting and potentially dangerous trip if he could avoid it.

"Dave…" Nesbitt panted. The scientist was having an even harder time with the heat, and he kept scratching his itchy beard. Taylor had spent an hour checking in with Stargate Command, which had delayed their trip into the desert.

"Yeah?"

"Didn't get to tell you last night. I also…whoo…" he exclaimed as he fought his way up a dune. "I also did a quick astronomical survey – the black hole in this system is a bit further out, but it's there. Can't see this system's Gleipnir array at that distance, but the black hole is pretty much proof of its existence."

"That was quick."

"Yeah, well, I know what to look for now, we don't have thick cloud cover to deal with, or a pain in the neck gas giant orbital cycle."

As the team followed Alsa over rocks and sand, something occurred to Taylor.

"Black hole…when they're made there's a lot of radiation isn't there? Could that be the source of the radioactive sand?"

Nesbitt puffed. Llewellyn's frequent jibes about his lack of fitness were beginning to ring true.

"Well…when they're formed naturally, yes, there's a supernova, and yes that would involve a massive release of energy. I don't know about artificially formed ones though, because I don't know how the Asgard formed them. And I think it unlikely there's a mini-supernova when they do it, because otherwise 434 would be a barren, sterile rock."

"Well, it was just an idea."

Nesbitt panted again, and shook his head, despite being behind Taylor.

"No, no, it's a good one. There's just something I can't put my finger on – but at least we know we're in the right place."

The journey lasted another half hour, most of it in silence as the heat and exertion made speaking an unpleasant prospect. As Nesbitt pulled himself over the crest of a particularly tough dune, he stopped, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath, his P90 dangling freely beneath his chest and the case still slung over his shoulder. Behind him, Halverson climbed over the top, dropped her back pack and lay on the baking hot sand on her back, propped up on her elbows.

"Sir." Jarvis said with a hint of irritation, indicating the two exhausted scientists.

Seeing Halverson and Nesbitt like that, he turned to Alsa.

"Alsa – do you know how much further it is? Some of my people need to rest; they aren't quite so used to this environment." He said with a smile. One thing he had learned time and again in his time with both the SAS and the Royal Anglian regiment was to work with the locals and never take anything they did for you for granted. Gratitude, honesty and humility towards the indigenous population could often be more powerful than any number of assault rifles or air strikes.

"I understand. It isn't much further, perhaps five minutes more walking." She said.

"Thanks. Right, you two hear that? Five minutes and you can rest. C'mon, get moving."

Groaning, Halverson pulled herself to her feet and scooped up her pack. She patted Nesbitt on the back as she strolled past. With a great effort, he hauled himself upright, took a deep breath, and followed the team, muttering under his breath.

"Oh, I hope Gareth and Kelly are suffering right now…"

* * *

The original site of the Stargate was not quite what any of them had been expecting. While they were all grateful for the shade afforded to them by the tall, triangular sandstone rock that jutted out of the sand like a shard of broken glass, they weren't sure what to make of the structure beneath it.

"I have to say, it's not what I expected to find." Nesbitt said.

"That doesn't look very Asgard." Jarvis said.

"It isn't. It's closer to…well, Egyptian. North African, certainly." Halverson said, frowning and chewing her lip.

Halverson walked closer to the box-like structure, hands on hips. It was carved out of the sandstone, and it had a simple doorway bordered by hieroglyphs. Beyond the entrance, all they could see were steps leading down and intense darkness.

"We can go inside, right?" Halverson asked Alsa, apparently as a worried afterthought. Taylor's words about sticking their nose in without checking with the locals had stuck in her mind.

"Certainly."

Halverson pulled her torch out of her pack and sauntered through the doorway, blinking furiously. Taylor followed, activating the tactical light on his carbine.

Inside, Halverson cast her torch around, scanning the walls. They were full of more hieroglyphs. On the far wall, there was another doorway.

"What are you thinking, Elise?" Taylor said as Jarvis and Nesbitt followed them inside.

"That I should have passed on the second cup of whatever that stuff was last night." She said, wincing and holding her hand over her forehead. "And that this doesn't look good for our mission. There has never been any evidence the Asgard ever got involved with any North African cultures – too much of a Goa'uld hotbed back when it mattered. They concerned themselves solely with North European and Scandinavian humans. So why do we have what looks like an Egyptian tomb on the original site of the Stargate?"

Nesbitt walked up to the pair.

"Maybe this was built on top of an Asgard facility. Assuming we're right about there being an Asgard facility under the Stargate in each of the Gleipnir systems, it's probably underground, like on 434. Hopefully it hasn't been buried or destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption this time."

Halverson nodded vaguely, deep in thought.

"Yes…yes that makes sense. So this could well have been built over it. Quite often temples spring up around Stargates on other worlds, so it is possible. So, if we go down as far as we can, we can start looking for Asgard tech."

Jarvis had been standing close to the door of the tomb-like structure, gazing at the walls with undisguised boredom. His face creased with a frown, and he walked hurriedly to the entrance, his head cocked towards the radio on his chest. As he walked outside, the faint signal he'd picked up grew in strength substantially. Llewellyn's modifications to their radios had bought them an extra two or three miles of decent signal, but even this was stretched so far out in the desert.

"Sir! We've got a situation." He shouted urgently. Taylor spun and ran outside. His radio burst into life with hurried, nervous speech.

"Llewellyn? What is it Lieutenant?"

"Sir, I just got a garbled data burst from the MALP – I think the gate just activated."

"The SGC's not due to contact us…" Jarvis said.

"Wait, I'm getting a video feed…oh crap."

Instinctively, Taylor and Jarvis looked in the direction of the Stargate. Far in the distance, three identical shapes were speeding into the air. The unfolding bat like wings and the twin pronged nose were unmistakeable.

"Alsa, come with us, quickly. Nesbitt, Halverson – stay here and keep working. Do _not_ go outside. The Fenrir just arrived." Taylor shouted into the tomb. Jarvis reached into his tactical vest and produced two P90 magazines.

"Hope you don't need them." He said, tossing them to Nesbitt.

Moments later, Taylor and Jarvis were sprinting back towards the town, with Alsa in pursuit.

As they half-ran, half-slid down the dune, Jarvis shouted.

"Look!"

Two of the three Fenrir war shuttles were speeding away from the gate in completely the opposite direction of the town. The third, however, was soaring high into the sky, contrails streaming from its wing tips. Without warning, the vehicle flipped upside down and rolled upright, its engines flared with brilliant white energy, powering it straight back towards the gate. A stream of blue-white plasma bolts spat from each side of its forked nose, streaking towards the same point where the craft had emerged. The explosion threw a massive, violent fountain of sand into the air, and the Fenrir craft peeled off, narrowly avoiding the cloud of superheated desert falling back to earth.

"Oh hell no, not the gate." Taylor breathed. His radio crackled again.

"Sir –" Llewellyn began.

"We saw it Lieutenant. We're heading back as fast as we can." Taylor responded.

"We lost the MALP, but just before the feed cut…I think that was to bury the gate."

"Damn it! Lieutenant, do not engage the Fenrir. Standby."

As they ran, Taylor yelled over his shoulder.

"Alsa, is there anywhere your people can go to hide?"

"They could go to the mines. They're west of here…Major, what are these 'Fenrir'?" she replied.

"I'll explain in a bit. Lieutenant, you and Moffatt are to round up the locals, tell them to take essentials only and go to the mines as quickly as possible. We'll be with you in about twenty minutes. Taylor out."

* * *

Nesbitt stared at the door and the stairs leading up to the open desert. Halverson paced nervously – her footprints covered almost the entire sand covered floor. It had been almost twenty minutes since Taylor and Jarvis had left.

"What the hell are the Fenrir doing here?" she said.

"I don't know, but I'm going to follow Dave's advice – I'm not bloody moving from this place."

"I mean, why the hell did he leave us here, alone?"

"Calculated risk. Maybe he thought we'd be relatively safe here. Or maybe he thought we'd get in the way in a combat situation. Or both."

Halverson paced again, hands on hips.

"Now that I think about it, every time there's been fighting, Dave tells us to stay put and keep our heads down, or get the hell out of the combat zone. And he normally sends Moffatt with us. I mean, she only had a pistol, like us, but…"

Nesbitt stared at Halverson, mildly concerned by her behaviour. Mentally, he slapped his forehead with the sudden realisation – this was indeed the first time either of them had potentially faced a significant threat without the presence of at least one trained soldier. In SG-27's short history, the team as a whole had only experienced combat once, as they escaped the Fenrir homeworld and made it back to P7T-434, and even then, he and Halverson had spent virtually the entire time running. No wonder Halverson was acting so edgy – their communications with the military elements of the team ranged from dodgy to non-existent, they were forced to remain in a single, unfamiliar place on their own for the foreseeable future and for all they knew, there was only one way in and out of this building. If the Fenrir found them here, they had very few options, and the ones they did have weren't attractive.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm on an SG team and I wouldn't be if I wasn't appropriately trained and mentally equipped to deal with combat, crises, the unknown…but previously, I've only had to react to danger, never having time to think until afterwards. That I can deal with. But now…now I think the waiting, wondering and thinking will finish me faster than running for my life from the Fenrir. Martin…what should we do?" she said, keeping her voice calm and strain free by strength of will.

Leaning against the door frame, Nesbitt stared out of the door and up the stairs thoughtfully. He could empathise with Elise, even if he wasn't showing it so much, and as a result he knew what he needed to say.

"I think Dave was right about that too. We keep working. You never know, we might find something to help us get out of this mess – even if it's just a back entrance. And if all else fails…we've got these now." He said, indicating the P90 attached to his chest harness.

Halverson stared at her own weapon. Her brief but terrifying encounter with the Fenrir on their homeworld had made her remarkably grateful to be equipped with an automatic weapon in addition to her pistol, just like Martin and Kelly. Now, she didn't think it would make much difference if the wolves did find them – she'd seen them take a worrying number of hits from a full blown assault rifle and keep on coming. One thing cheered her up – she remembered from the firing ranges in Nevada that Nesbitt was a surprisingly good shot. Maybe if things got hairy – in more than one sense – his skill would be enough of an advantage for them both be able to hold the Fenrir off long enough for the rest of the team to get to them.

"All right." She said, nodding, as much to convince herself as to agree with Nesbitt's assessment of the situation. She took a deep breath and turned to gaze at the engravings in the wall.

"I can do one thing that might help both of us relax a bit." Nesbitt said, unclipping his backpack and fishing around inside it. Triumphantly, he removed a roll of black tape and a small black device the size of a credit card but around an inch thick. He strode up to the entrance, jogged up the stairs with Elise watching him, and carefully positioned the black box on the wall before taping it in place.

"What's that?" Halverson called up to him.

Nesbitt pressed a switch on the back of the device and turned his tablet PC on as he walked back down to the first chamber, sitting on the steps.

"Think of it as the mother of all webcams. Excellent picture quality and zoom with an infrared mode, and a battery life of several days. It'll link to the software on my tablet," he said, indicating the program he'd just opened that initially showed an image of pure white that quickly adjusted itself to show the dunes outside with remarkably clarity, "which will record everything it sees, as well as detect and track motion. I can run it in the background and it'll alert us if anything comes within about…oh, five or six hundred metres of this place. Best of all, it's got mil-spec wireless with a range of over a kilometre, although with the EM interference here it's probably a lot less, and I'm fairly sure I can program it to function as a repeater station for any incoming radio transmissions. If Dave or any of the others contact us, it should pick it up, boost the signal and pass it on to us. At least, it will if I can get these programs to talk to each other."

With that, he minimised the window. Halverson nodded again, slightly reassured.

"Well, that's something. At least we can now watch the Grim Reaper's poodles coming to turn us into mincemeat."

Nesbitt chuckled.

"That's the spirit."

Halverson sighed again, relaxing a little more with every exhalation and coming to terms with their situation.

"So, what does all this mean?" Nesbitt said lightly, gesturing at the hieroglyphs. Halverson looked at them as if she hadn't noticed them, studying them for several seconds before responding.

"Mean? I haven't got a clue." Halverson said matter-of-factly.

"But…I thought you…" Nesbitt stuttered.

"Oh, I can't translate this myself – I studied Scandinavian cultures and languages, and Northern European ones to a lesser extent. Sorry to break it to you Martin, but genius multi-disciplinary polyglots who can learn any language or culture are most emphatically the exception, not the rule. We can't all be Doctor Daniel bloody Jackson."

As if to emphasise the point, she produced a digital video camera and a tablet PC from her pack. While the PC booted up, she attached the camera to it via a data cable. With the PC now running, she stood up, tablet held in one arm, tapped the screen a few times and then held the camera in the palm of her other hand. She ran it slowly and methodically across the walls. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nesbitt staring.

"Field optical translation software. Far from perfect, but it'll give me a rough idea of what this is saying. If we get out of this, I'll have to get Jackson to do a proper translation. Look, while you're here, there's a question I've been meaning to ask you."

"Okay."

"Why haven't the Fenrir worked out how to bypass the barrier in over ten thousand years of imprisonment? I mean, why can't an ordinary hyperdrive punch a hole through it? Isn't that what a Stargate is, basically?"

Nesbitt took a deep breath, and Halverson quickly regretted asking the question, groaning inside.

"Oh no, no a Stargate is to a hyperdrive what the Space Shuttle is to a firework. Broadly speaking, they operate on the same principle, and a Stargate is a _type_ of static hyperspace engine, but it's also so much more advanced, so sophisticated...so much more elegant. Even an Asgard intergalactic hyperdrive is a blunt instrument that violently rips reality apart and sends a ship through hyperspace with pure brute force, fighting resistance all the way – and they're only as good as their power source. They're temperamental power-gluttons that stop working at the drop of a hat. By comparison, a Stargate is a perfectly tuned, extremely reliable and efficient marvel of technology, and it takes a lot to stop one of them working. It neatly cuts a much more controllable hole into subspace, forges a stable conduit between two gates and converts matter into energy, transmitting it almost instantly over massive distances. The fact that a fully functioning Stargate needs to be modified and supercharged to make a connection through the subspace barrier says a lot about its impenetrability."

He sat and watched her for a while, and they chatted on and off about the disturbing excess of reality shows on both American and British television, their preferences for music, and films they had seen. After a while, Nesbitt became bored, unable to think of anything else to talk about. Halverson, however, was relaxed and busy, deeply involved in her work. Even with a completely unfamiliar language that bore little relation to anything she understood, the work of translating it was something that comforted her, something she could focus on. It was then that he remembered he had gear of his own that he was supposed to be using.

"Look, while you do that I'm going to check the rest of this place out." He said. Halverson mumbled an unconcerned reply that he couldn't catch.

Striding through the second door, he cast around with his torch.

The structure – he felt he should call it a tomb, but it seemed unlikely that it had been built to hold dead bodies – was much bigger than the first room or the exterior had suggested. His hopes of discovering an Asgard facility beneath it grew.

"Elise, can you hear me?" he said, testing the radio.

"Of course I can, I'm in the next bloody room!" the irate anthropologist yelled back.

"No, I mean on the radio – this place looks a lot bigger than I thought, and if I wander off, I want to make sure you can still hear me."

"Fine. Yes, I can hear you over the radio."

Satisfied, Nesbitt wandered further into the labyrinthine complex.

"You know something that puzzles me?" he said after a few minutes.

"What." Halverson replied, irritably.

"How'd they get the Stargate out if this place was built around it? For that matter – where the hell did they put it? I haven't seen a room yet with a ceiling of more than two metres."


	5. Chapter 5

Taylor crouched behind the dune, gingerly sticking his head over the lip to study the town. He had borrowed Alsa's sand-coloured head wrap to cover his head and shield the binoculars from glare, knowing his black hair would be far too conspicuous against the light sand and brightly lit sky even if he were facing human adversaries. Something Moffatt had told him about her standing in during Dr Lam's autopsy of the Fenrir corpses had pushed its way to the front of his mind. One of the facts that stuck out from that conversation was her theory that the Fenrir likely had formidable eyesight that compared more favourably with that of a bird of prey than a human or a wolf.

"What do you see?" Jarvis hissed as quietly as he could. Fenrir hearing was an unknown quantity, but again, Moffatt and Lam had speculated it was acutely sensitive.

Taylor withdrew slowly until he was hidden behind the dune.

"I count three mutts: one near the main entrance, where we came in, one in the town square, and one patrolling the streets." He whispered. Alsa looked on in concern.

"Seems like a small number to leave guarding a town, even if it is deserted…there aren't any other settlements are there?" Jarvis asked.

"None – we are the only ones on this world, and that is how it has been for centuries." Alsa replied, hushed.

Taylor screwed his face up in concentration. Minutes before they had arrived near the town, they had watched the Fenrir shuttle that attacked the Stargate descend until it was hovering around ten metres above the sand. The rear ramp had lowered and three Fenrir warriors had casually jumped to the desert below and walked into the town. The shuttle had immediately closed its ramp and sped after the other two.

"Three hostiles spotted – west side of the town square, six metres into the north street, and two metres inside the town entrance." Taylor murmured, concentration etched in his features.

"Neutralise them? We should be able to manage it." Jarvis offered, unconsciously emphasising the suggestion by tightening his grip on the light machine gun in his hands.

"Probably…but I don't know that's a good idea Sergeant. Right now, our priority is protecting those civilians, so I think our best bet is to circle around and regroup at the mines; we need to link up with Moffatt and Llewellyn. The last thing we want right now is for the Fenrir to raise the alarm and distract the rest of them. We wouldn't stand a chance if that happens. No, we avoid confrontation for now."

With degrees of silence and swiftness that betrayed his special forces career better than any military file, Taylor moved, keeping his head below the dune. Jarvis and Alsa followed.

Five minutes later, they were on the other side of the town. Taylor ordered a halt and decided to risk scanning the town again to check if they had been noticed and were being pursued by snarling nightmarish predators.

Borrowing Alsa's wrap again and slowly lifting his head and binoculars around the side of the rock formation they were hiding behind, he slowly observed the town for all of twenty seconds before something made him withdraw, hissing a curse. Instinctively, Jarvis began raising his Minimi in the now likely sounding event that an armed werewolf was about to leap around the corner.

Taylor waved him to stand down before sticking his head back around, taking hold of his radio and clicking it twice. Satisfied by the lack of response that the Fenrir couldn't hear their radio signals, he hid again and depressed the talk button.

"Taylor to Llewellyn, come in." he spoke softly, quickly checking the volume on the radio.

"Here sir." The crackling reply came. Judging by the interference, the mines couldn't be more than a mile away.

"Why the hell are there civilians left in the town? I told you to round them up and get them to the mines!" he hissed. He'd seen people at the windows of their houses.

"There wasn't time. Some of them just hid when they saw the shuttles, and Moffatt and I decided it was best to get the majority to safety rather than risk all of them."

Taylor sighed. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few – the logic was irrefutable. It was also damned annoying.

"Right. Fine. How far are the mines from the town, Lieutenant?"

"Not far – took us less than ten minutes to get here."

"Then I want you and Moffatt to leg it back here on the double. We're going to get the rest of the civilians out of the town, and if things go wrong, I want more firepower holding the Fenrir off."

* * *

"Martin. Martin?"

The structure was bigger than she thought. Nesbitt hadn't exaggerated when he had said in his last radio communication that it was like a maze.

His offhand comments about the difficulty of reconciling her Stargate-centred theory with the evidence had preyed on her mind, and despite doing her best to push it aside, after half an hour she had put the computer and camera down and in standby, unable to concentrate fully on her work. Just like him to make an innocent speculation that completely derailed her train of thought and drove her mad until she dealt with it.

"Over here…I might have found something!"

Halverson jogged towards Nesbitt's voice, wary of crashing into something her torch hadn't picked out if she ran any faster. Nesbitt had been right – the place was a maze.

Eerie orange light seeped around the corner, and Elise slowed warily.

As she rounded the corner, she saw what was emitting the orange glow, and clicked her torch off, sighing in relief and muttering at her reaction. Nesbitt had cracked two fluorescent glow sticks and dropped them on opposite sides of the room.

The physicist had his back to her, studying a wall that looked like all the others – a plain, solid slab of sandstone, but inscribed with hieroglyphs and drawings. His tablet PC was held in one arm, a long, thin cable stretching between it and the metal and plastic implement held in his other hand – she was confident, having asked him before, that it was a multi-sensor scanning attachment. SG-27 didn't rate being issued with the sleek, hugely advanced and therefore expensive palm-sized scanners fielded by Colonel Carter and Dr McKay.

Nesbitt swept the scanning device up and down and side to side along the wall.

"So…what is it?" she said.

"I'm…not entirely sure. All I know is I'm getting a faint electromagnetic field right…here. Too high to be background, even on this planet, but it's also pretty feeble for Asgard tech – if it is Asgard. Point is I think there's something behind this wall. But hell if I know how to get to it!"

"Okay…sure it's not easily accessed by a passage you've missed?"

"No, I've checked the surrounding area quite thoroughly. At least I think I have. No, I'm pretty damn sure this wall is hiding something."

Nodding, Halverson stepped back and clicked her torch on again. If the wall was concealing something, there was a good chance there would be a hidden mechanism to reveal it. Nesbitt hadn't found anything yet, indicating either the mechanism was shielded from low level sensors or it was simply too primitive to show up. This could take a while, she realised, so she began studying the wall for clues, wiping centuries of accumulated dust off the engravings. It didn't take long for her to find a clue.

"Uh, Martin?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you actually _looked_ at the wall?"

"Well of course, I've been…oh. Oh good grief…"

The design didn't register on the eye immediately, but as soon as it was seen, it was nigh impossible to see anything else. The hieroglyphs and engravings, innocent and numerous enough to go almost unnoticed, covered the entire wall, but some stood out thanks to deeper cuts and outlines. Most importantly of all, these darker glyphs formed a pattern when the wall was viewed as a whole, like a picture made up of a mosaic of smaller images – it was unmistakeably the head of a wolf.

"Oh no no no…Martin, wait here. Don't do anything!" Halverson said, a look of startled realisation flashing across her face. She turned and sprinted, only barely remembering to click her torch back on.

* * *

Taylor crouched and ran along the adobe wall, halting and raising his hand. Behind him, Llewellyn slowed and stopped. Taylor carefully and slowly peaked around the edge of the building, over the low stone wall attached to it. The street, formed by high sided buildings, was partly in bright sunlight, partly in shade, occupied by nothing more than a few abandoned market stalls.

Satisfied there was no Fenrir in sight or about to approach, he signalled Jarvis to move up, and then looked for Llewellyn. The lieutenant was making his way to the building opposite, heading for the cover of a large group of sacks with his carbine at the ready.

Taylor's first instinct had been to create a killing zone just outside the town with his, Llewellyn's and Jarvis's guns ready and waiting to tear the Fenrir down once Moffatt got their attention and got them chasing her. He quickly quashed that idea, realising the Fenrir weren't stupid and that even if they did go for it, they were so fast and strong she wouldn't stand a chance. Additionally, there was a good chance one of them would quickly call for reinforcements. His second plan had simply been to evacuate the remaining civilians quietly and hope the Fenrir never realised they were present, but he knew that was unlikely and dangerous, and again, would very probably result in one or more of the wolves calling for reinforcements.

Reluctantly he'd realised they needed to eliminate all three Fenrir at the same time – this meant they would be engaging the alien wolves one on one and they would have to get terrifyingly close to accomplish this, and in turn this meant they not only had to contend with the Fenrir's fearsomely acute senses but their own inadequate weapons. He'd seen Fenrir take half a magazine from an M4 or C8 carbine – fifteen rounds of 5.56mm ammunition – before dropping, and shrug off 9mm bullet wounds as if they were merely an irritation. Moffatt had explained their unusual biological quirk of being able to incorporate the super-strong metal trinium into their connective tissue and their multiply redundant organ systems as the reasons they were so hard to kill. Thankfully, there was no evidence of rapid regeneration like the Goa'uld or the Wraith.

He looked back over his shoulder. Along with Alsa, Moffatt was holding position at the edge of the town, hidden and waiting for the Fenrir to be eliminated. She wasn't taking part in the combat because she was a medic, and therefore not supposed to use her P90 except for defence. While Taylor had been strongly tempted to bend the rules and order her to join in, he relented, realising that apart from her P90 not bringing much to the fight, it was more important that she find and alert the remaining civilians as soon as she could. If he, Jarvis and Llewellyn couldn't eliminate the Fenrir in one go, she had orders to evacuate as many civilians as she could in the confusion, with the fire fight hopefully buying her enough time. Even if they succeeded in taking out the three wolves in one go, he wanted her rounding up the remaining townsfolk before the last wolf hit the ground.

He heard a rhythmic metallic clicking approaching, the sound of a Fenrir's claws on the exposed sandstone the town was built on, and quickly signalled Jarvis and Llewellyn to halt urgently. They weren't in place yet – if they had to engage the Fenrir now, their plan was near useless.

There was no wolf in any of the streets Taylor looked down, but the clicking was getting closer. Neither Llewellyn nor Jarvis could see any hostile, but they could all hear it approaching. It couldn't be more than ten metres away now – it should be perfectly visible.

Something occurred to him, something he'd seen the Fenrir do on P7T-434, and he remembered, sickeningly, that the Fenrir had incredibly powerful muscles. Powerful enough to jump at least twenty feet straight up in eighty-five percent gravity.

Acting entirely on gut instinct, he immediately launched himself forwards with a yell, his leg muscles extending explosively. A stream of screaming white hot metal buried itself in the sandstone where he'd been, showering his calves with blasted sandstone. Realising he was now lying face down in the middle of the street, fully exposed, he rolled onto his back, and in one movement raised his carbine, switched it to full automatic and firing it blindly. Jarvis and Llewellyn joined in quickly, the three lines of bullets converging on the Fenrir standing on top of the house, tiny sand coloured explosions jetting out of the building before Taylor refined his aim. A trio of rounds slammed into the werewolf's shoulder and the gun-axe dropped out of its grasp to the street below. Six more rounds found its chest, spurting thick black blood where they hit flesh and plumes of sparks where they struck the odd asymmetrical metal armour.

Growling and clutching its shoulder, the wounded Fenrir fell back to the relative safety of the roof, out of sight of the assault rifles.

Jarvis grunted as he hurled the grenade after it, the small green sphere arcing almost perfectly onto the top of the building. Almost as soon as the explosive had left his hand he was up and running for a new position. The grenade detonated with a deafening crack and the Fenrir roared in pain.

"They're hunting us!" Taylor said, scrambling to his feet and casting around for more rooftop attackers. The wolves weren't interested in swift kills, although suddenly he didn't doubt they could have eliminated his entire team in a heartbeat if they had chosen to – they wanted sport, they wanted a prolonged chase with increasingly scared prey. He knew that was the only reason he'd heard the clicking claws, a deliberate act to give them a chance to fight back and thus draw out the hunt.

"Sir!" Llewellyn shouted.

Out of the corner of his eye, Taylor saw a broken line of bright orange moving up the street, blasting a string of small craters in the compressed sand and accompanied by the all too familiar high-pitched scream. Taylor realised the danger he was in - he was in the middle of a wide, sunlit street, and there was a Fenrir shooting red hot hypersonic flechettes at him, trying to walk the line of projectiles in to his body.

Taylor sprinted across the street, perpendicular to the line of red hot flechettes, and dived into the narrow gap between the two buildings opposite. As he rolled, he saw the edge of the building suddenly disappear in a furious cloud of smoke and blasted adobe as the flechettes followed him, his feet narrowly avoiding perforation. More bursts of orange cut across the entrance of the narrow alley, carving a little more out of the ground and the edge of the building. He couldn't head back that way.

He was cut off from Llewellyn and Jarvis, and he felt stupid – that was the whole point. The Fenrir hadn't been shooting to kill, it had been shooting to get him to do exactly this, to split his team up. He grabbed his radio.

"Crap…Jarvis, Llewellyn, don't let them split you up. Stay together, no matter what. They're trying to divide us."

"Yes sir. Right now…agh…right now I think they're trying to divide us into pieces. We're pinned down here. Shooter is at bottom of the street, but can't see him."

Taylor cursed, and sighted down his carbine at the other end of the alley, periodically checking the roof for lupine aggressors and heading for the brightly lit town square into which the alley opened. If he couldn't go back the way he'd come, there was only one other option.

* * *

Jarvis ducked again as the screaming flechettes tore at the stone wall, spraying him with hot, sharp fragments of rock. As the fire stopped, he raised the machine gun and fired blindly over the top, hoping for a lucky hit.

He couldn't move. Any attempt to escape was arrested by a fresh burst of fire. There was one way he could go, but it meant putting a lot of distance between himself and Llewellyn who was crouched behind a heap of grain sacks across the street, similarly pinned down. Both men had one escape route, but it meant that each soldier was unable to cover the other, and the Major's warning had been very clear, and very well received. Jarvis had no desire to round a corner only to walk into an eight-foot werewolf with a battleaxe. As long as they remained in sight of each other, they had better odds of surviving and fighting off any Fenrir that came into view. Not good odds, Jarvis reflected wistfully, but better.

The wall he was hiding behind was in bad shape, its top a ragged mass of smouldering stone. So far it seemed to be able to arrest the fearsome armour penetration of the Fenrir ammunition – in the battle on P7T-434 he'd seen the minute hypersonic darts punch through boron carbide body armour with ease – but he didn't know how much longer it could keep taking hits, or if the Fenrir's weapon would run dry before that happened. For that matter, would the Fenrir even keep firing? More likely was the idea that it was simply keeping them pinned with occasional bursts to force them to split up and become easy targets, or so its team mates could flank them if they stayed where they was all the more reason to stay put – Llewellyn and he could combine their firepower. Everything hinged on the Major now.

* * *

Taylor burst into the town square, carbine raised, body tensed, and scanned the entire area quickly. Nothing. He backed up against the wall, quickly glancing upwards to make sure there wasn't a leering wolf's head staring down at him and crouch-walked with the compact assault rifle raised and ready to the end of building. One street over was a Fenrir pinning down the rest of his squad. If he removed that threat, they should be able to rejoin the fight.

Nervously, he checked behind him. Still nothing – but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching him, toying with him and willing him into a trap. Nevertheless, his objective was clear.

As he approached the end of the line of buildings, judging he was maybe twenty metres from the Fenrir's position, he slowed, stopped and listened. All he could hear were periodic bursts of screaming flechettes from somewhere close by.

He exploded around the corner, relying on fast reflexes and good judgement to keep him alive. Knowing he was perilously exposed at this intersection and risked being sawn in half by a hail of orange darts, he desperately searched the area for the threat, his mind counting down the milliseconds he could remain in this position before something fired upon him. In front of him, attached to the largest building in the town was a crude wooden structure – it looked like a large market stall. His subconscious mind took over, years of training and combat exercises having hardwired the ability to identify danger, escape routes and viable cover in very little time without even thinking about it.

The brief, tell-tale glint of the axe blade through the gaps in the side of the stall was all he needed to see. Unfortunately, the Fenrir was staring directly at him through the same gap and already bringing the huge weapon across with unnerving speed. He squeezed the trigger, spraying the stall on automatic. Bullets ripped into the wooden structure, smoke and showers of splinters filling the air and obscuring his vision. He kept firing.

Releasing the trigger but knowing there were only three rounds left in the magazine, Taylor sprinted to the far wall, sidling up to the wrecked stall. He peered quickly through the gaping hole his bullets had torn in the side of the structure. The Fenrir was on its back, the axe out of its grasp, its legs kicking feebly and its tail flapping. The silvery claws on its hand twitched and curled and its head lolled from side to side, its breathing ragged as it moaned in pain. He could see that its chest armour was perforated, black blood oozing out of the holes. A pool of the liquid was already spreading out underneath the downed alien as it writhed weakly. It was in agony, near death but not near enough.

Nothing deserved to suffer like that.

He flicked the fire selector to single shot, aimed at the wolf's head and fired until the rifle clicked empty, and the Fenrir lay completely motionless.

"Target eliminated, scratch one mutt." He said into his radio as he flicked the rifle back to auto, ejected the spent magazine and slotted another in whilst scanning the streets and rooftops. From this distance the sergeant and lieutenant could easily hear him if he raised his voice, but that was something he didn't want to do, even if Fenrir hearing was extremely sensitive.

"Roger. Moving to new position."

At the far end of the street, Taylor saw Jarvis roadie run from behind an almost demolished stone wall across the street to join up with Llewellyn. As they disappeared out of sight, Taylor ran back to the town square to meet up with them.

"Oh crap!"

The Fenrir dropped down in front of him, its axe in one hand, blocking the exit to the square. It snarled and raised the weapon over its head as he braked suddenly, trying to arrest his forward motion. Instead he simply slipped to the ground even as the axe blade swung overhead and arced down toward him. Using the adrenaline his body had so graciously pumped into his veins he rolled out of the way, feeling rather than hearing the huge blade bury itself in the sandstone inches from his head. The wolf ripped the blade free and Taylor realised there wasn't time to get to his feet and get out of the way, there was no way he could roll onto his back and fire before it killed him, and no way he could push past the monster.

The wolf howled as its side erupted in sparks, smoke and black liquid, and it slumped to the ground under the onslaught of the machine gun fire.

"Sir." Jarvis said, appearing around the edge of the building where the wolf had been standing, lending Taylor a hand to get to his feet.

"Thanks sergeant. Moffatt, you and Alsa better be rounding up those bloody civilians right now!" He said into his radio.

* * *

"They're everywhere. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees – I think I was just a little distracted by, you know, nasty impending death by alien werewolves. See, at first I thought they were jackals. As best I can tell, this building fits with the ancestry of the locals – Ancient Egyptian, although somewhat altered in the intervening millennia, so when all's said and done that was a reasonable assumption." Halverson said, gesturing to the structure around them as Nesbitt stared at the pictures on her tablet PC.

Nesbitt was silent as he flicked through the photos. Halverson put a voice to his thoughts.

"Wolves. Everywhere. And you can probably see there's one other common element."

"Some of them are bound?" Nesbitt said, looking up from the computer.

"Exactly. And it's not just images – what I could make out of the hieroglyphs with the translation software suggests the same. This all fits with my theory. The Fenrir myth, an evil wolf put in chains that will break free at the end of the world…it's not just Norse mythology on Earth, it's present in the mythology of nearly every society that lives next to the Fenrir prison, regardless of their ancestry. And in many cases, it isn't just an old part of the mythology, it's a major element of their religion – the wolf, in various forms, fills much the same role as the Devil in Christianity. Somebody influenced these cultures to remember the Fenrir and know they were trouble, and it's a near certainty it was the builders of the Gleipnir arrays."

"The Asgard."

"Except I don't think it was. There's almost nothing in the Asgard core about the Fenrir, which is more than just odd. Now consider that the black holes powering the Gleipnir arrays pre-date the earliest record of the Asgard learning how to artificially collapse stars. And on top of all that, don't you think that when the Odyssey went to the Asgard homeworld just before they killed themselves, you know, when they told us we were the fifth race and it was our duty to protect and police the galaxy, they might have mentioned the race of bad tempered psycho werewolves they imprisoned a few millennia before?"

Nesbitt was stunned, but a counter-argument occurred to him.

"But hang on – the tech we found under and behind the gate on 434, the Gleipnir arrays, the crystal that beamed in on the Fenrir homeworld…it's all definitely, irrefutably Asgard technology. I can tell you that much for certain, so it must have been the Asgard. And let's not forget the fact that they were able to affect Asgard shields and sensors on the Apollo."

"Yes, I know. But think about it. We already know from the Atlantis Expedition that there were at least two ideologically opposed Asgard factions. What if there was a third? It's the only theory I can think of that logically explains all the inconsistencies. It is all Asgard – just not the Asgard we've dealt with. The technology is probably pretty damn close, if not identical."

Nesbitt exhaled. Halverson had kept the theory close to her chest, only telling Taylor so they could get a meeting with the IOA and convince them to authorise this mission, he knew that much. Now he understood why. It was a huge idea – he remembered the shocked reaction amongst the SGC and Area 51 staff when they learnt of the existence of rogue Asgard in the Pegasus galaxy. Elise was suggesting a third faction, one responsible not for unethical human experimentation, but the imprisonment of an entire species and civilisation.

"Well…holy crap. Oh boy, that changes everything. A hidden Asgard faction? Ironically, at least it explains why the Asgard core couldn't interpret the crystal – only an Asgard could understand the core's technology well enough to know how to encrypt data to stop it reading the crystal!" he said.

"So, now we have an idea what we're dealing with, maybe we should try and find out what's behind this wall?"

It took them less than five minutes to identify the hidden mechanism, a single glyph that moved. Halverson quickly found her digital video camera and began filming Nesbitt as he pressed the stone.

"Nothing. Maybe…" he began, cut off seconds later by a deep rumble.

Creaking and grinding, the wall retracted into the ceiling, showering dust and sand onto the floor as Nesbitt and Halverson watched in amazement. Beyond lay a passageway that sloped downwards, constructed from exotic metals. Peculiar lights danced across the walls, but the source of the illumination remained hidden. A faint turquoise glow filled the corridor, and white lights lined the edges of the floor. A barely audible hum filled the air.

"Found something…" Halverson murmured.

* * *

Taylor looked back.

The town was in the distance now, barely visible over the tops of the dunes. It had taken too long for his liking to knock on every door and gather the remaining townsfolk, long enough that the first sun had already set, and the second was already sliding below the horizon. Dusk was approaching, and the intense green auroras were becoming visible. Moffatt continued ahead, leading the twenty-eight civilians they'd been able to locate towards the mine. Jarvis and Llewellyn brought up the rear of the column, ready to fight off any Fenrir pursuers, but so far they hadn't seen any sign of the aliens. Llewellyn had theorised the atmospheric interference was afflicting their communications as well, and that as a result, the main group were unaware the town sentries had been neutralised.

The mine itself was two or three minutes walk ahead of them, and around a hundred feet below them, but clearly visible. It was a wide pit cut into the golden brown rock underlying the desert, and when Taylor first saw it, he thought it was a quarry – the idea of sending a hundred and twelve civilians to huddle at the bottom of a steep sided rock pit filled him with worry. For the Fenrir, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, or at best, a ready-made hunting arena vaguely similar to the one he'd seen on their homeworld.

As he got closer, he sighed with relief. While it resembled a quarry, the pitch black hole in the wall at the bottom of the pit proved it was truly a mine. Piles of broken rock sat in front of the mine entrance, with picks, barrows and other paraphernalia next to them. Smaller heaps of useful ore lay across from them, half loaded into small wooden trucks under crude and unsteady looking wooden scaffolding.

As he watched the civilians trudge past, all of them either deeply afraid or else morose, Taylor realised Alsa was standing next to him, and the expression on her face suggested she wanted to talk about something unpleasant that troubled and angered her.

"Major Taylor – I need to talk with you. About these Fenrir."

"Okay." He said, starting to walk again. Alsa walked beside him.

"You seem to know a great deal about them."

He couldn't quite tell if the tone was accusatory or simply trying to prompt an answer. He opted for the latter in order to keep things friendly for as long as he could. He had a nasty feeling things were going to go south very quickly now that Alsa was asking him questions – the longer he could hold on to the rapport they'd built up, the better for everyone.

"Heh, not as much as you'd think, and not as much as we'd like."

"Major, because of these Fenrir, I am deeply concerned – even fearful. I had no idea they looked like that."

"Yeah, they're not pretty." Taylor said.

"No, I don't think you understand. I had never seen them before today, yet their form is very familiar to me, and probably to all of my people. I believe their appearance is what caused so many to remain in their homes."

"What do you mean?" Taylor asked.

"We are not great believers in religion, Major – we endured too many false gods to believe in real ones – but our ancestors had strong beliefs, before the false gods arrived. They had sacred texts - I remember my father reading them to me as a child, but they were just stories to me. But what I have seen today has made me wonder if they were true after all. The texts made mention of…demons, powerful demons. Jackals or dogs or wolves from the underworld that walk like men. Their eyes blaze with infernal fires and they consume men's souls, hordes of them sleeping and waiting at the walls of creation, waiting to blot out the stars and devour all men at the end of the world. The texts say they were expelled from creation by the gods, but that they tricked the gods and walked the stars once, for a brief moment. In that time, the stars ran red with blood, and they brought ruin, death, disease and fire to many worlds until the gods fought them and forced them out of creation again."

"Actually, that sounds disturbingly accurate – and familiar…" Taylor said, feeling the hairs on his arms stand on end.

"I still don't think you understand – the texts say that they can only return to creation one more time, for one reason only. Their presence here, according to the old beliefs, heralds the end of the world. Major, you talked about them as if you've encountered them before. How are they here?"

Taylor cleared his throat. The mine was in front of them now.

"Get inside first."

"Major…"

"Get inside the mine first, and then we'll talk."

It took only a minute for the people to enter the mines and join their kin.

"Lieutenant, how about some hidden surprises for any visitors?"

"Yes sir." Llewellyn said, producing two claymore mines and several blocks of C4 from his pack. He set to work placing the charges near the entrance and disguising their presence. Taylor turned to the assembled mass of frightened, despondent townsfolk.

"Alright, everybody. Everybody, listen up." He shouted. "From now on, stay away from the entrance. I repeat, stay well away from the mine entrance. Don't go outside for any reason. We're laying traps for anything that tries to follow us in; very, very dangerous traps – you do not want to set them off."

Jarvis helped to herd the crowd deeper into the mine, torches already burning on the walls, and then returned to the entrance to cover Llewellyn while he prepared the explosives. Moffatt moved towards Taylor, an inquisitive look on her face.

"Corporal?"

"Just wondering sir. Specifically, how long it'll be before the SGC declare us overdue, and what they'll do if they can't dial the gate. Lieutenant Llewellyn said the last image from the MALP showed it completely buried."

Taylor nodded, rolling the idea around inside his head.

"The bad news is we're not due to check in until tomorrow morning. This was classified as a low risk, long term mission, and when I spoke to Landry this morning, I told him the situation was perfectly stable but that it might take us a while to find anything, given that it was probably far out in the desert. I don't think the SGC will do anything until midday tomorrow. When they discover they can't dial the gate, they'll probably divert one of the 304s or a Jaffa ship to pick us up – I just hope the atmospheric interference doesn't block the beaming sensors. We just have to hold out that long, and the fact we haven't seen or heard any Fenrir in the area since the town makes me think we've got a good shot at surviving. But do you know what really bothers me?"

"Sir?"

"Why'd the Fenrir bury the gate in the first place? I can understand they might not want anyone following them or disrupting whatever the hell it is they're doing here, but surely they need to go back through it at some point?"

It was Moffatt's turn to think.

"Well, their ships are apparently hyperspace capable. They don't necessarily need the gates."

"So why use them in the first place? Maybe time was a factor, and they needed to get here as soon as possible, or perhaps they only had the gate address…I don't know. Something about it stinks. Something about the whole damn fact that they're here stinks to high heaven, and I just don't know what it is."

Moffatt smiled.

"Times like that, I find the best thing to do is not think about it, sir. The less you try to force it, the more easily it'll come to you. One more thing: what do we do about Martin and Elise?"

"I don't know. We could go for them now, but I don't think that'd be a good idea."

"Not really – the Fenrir have incredibly light sensitive retinas, and even a degree of thermal vision. The heat and bright sunlight earlier probably helped you a great deal. If you went out now –"

"If we went out now, we'd lose that big tactical advantage, be fumbling around in the dark and probably shot and eaten by a Fenrir patrol." Taylor said, nodding soberly – the idea that he, Jarvis and Llewellyn had just barely survived a Fenrir attack because the wolves were half-blind and severely hampered was not a pleasant thought. As he was contemplating this and trying to come up with a new plan, Alsa strode up to him.

"We're inside the mine, as you asked. We have been welcoming, we have done as you asked – repeatedly. So now you talk." Alsa said firmly. Her demeanour was no longer friendly and familiar, but severe and distant.

"Sounds fair." Taylor replied, reluctantly, finding somewhere to sit and ushering Alsa to do the same. Above him, a torch flickered.

"About four months ago, my team were exploring another world. We found something strange attached to the Stargate there, and to cut a long story short, we discovered the gate was able to take us to a place no other Stargate could reach. It turned out to be their world, a planet like this or any other you can visit through the Stargate, just cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Alsa, they aren't demons – they're creatures, an alien race. I'll admit, they're hard to kill, but they are flesh and blood, much like you and me. And let me assure you, they can be killed – I've done so myself, with this very weapon." He said, raising the carbine for emphasis before slinging it behind him.

Alsa was staring at him, mouth agape.

"How are they here?" she asked.

"Alsa –" Taylor began.

"You said you went to their world, that it was cut off, and evidently you came back, so I'll ask you again – how are they here?" she demanded.

Taylor sighed. This was exactly what he'd been afraid of, but he had hoped to keep it to himself, put it off until the crisis was over – if they managed to survive this – or break it under his own terms. None of these were possible now. Alsa's raised voice and shocked tone had drawn several of her people nearer, and still more simply turned their heads and listened in. Taylor stood up, uncertain of what was about to happen and wanting to be ready if things went bad.

"Some of them escaped when we did."

The people reacted with revulsion and terror, as Taylor expected. As if it wasn't bad enough that the demonic harbingers of the apocalypse were here, on their world, they had just found out the visitors they had taken in and given hospitality and aid to were the ones responsible for unleashing them.

"You woke the wolf?" one of the nearby men asked with a mixture of incredulity and shock. The too-loud phrase was like a match to dry grass, spreading with incredible speed through the assembled mass of the townsfolk. Panicked cries and shocked exclamations gave way rapidly to furious shouting and angered calls to exact revenge. He could see Jarvis with his LMG, unsure whether to use it or not if things got rough. Llewellyn and Moffatt didn't have their weapons in their hands, but both of them stood behind the big sergeant.

"Listen, we –" Taylor began.

Three of them rushed him, one of them with a wooden implement in his raised fist.

He had been in a placatory, non-hostile posture, but as the first attacker lunged he snapped his arm forwards, grabbing the man's hair and planting his legs far apart for leverage. Using the attacker's own momentum, he yanked him past and hurled him face first into the exposed rock of the mine's wall, the man's face giving out a sickening crunch and his body going limp and sliding to the floor. Without pausing for a moment and using the energy and flow of the first move, Taylor hook kicked the second man in the face, then, as his foot landed, slammed his right elbow into the cheek of the second man with tremendous force and simultaneously delivered a lightning fast uppercut gut punch with his left fist.

As the man doubled over, unable to breathe, Taylor straightened his right arm, reached quickly over the agonised assailant's shoulder and down his back, whilst moving his left arm to grab the man's clothing, flesh, whatever offered a firm handhold, and pulled. The attacker was wrenched off his feet and flung to the floor, and Taylor ensured he would stay there with a swift kick.

The third attacker was about to smash Taylor's head with the wooden tool. Taylor fired off a blindingly fast open palmed punch, feeling, hearing and seeing the man's nose crack and begin pouring blood. Without wasting a second, he grabbed the arm holding the weapon at the wrist and twisted hard enough to throw the man to the floor, snapping the elbow in the process and digging his nails in until the weapon fell from the screaming aggressor's grasp. The entire fight had lasted six seconds.

Lungs heaving and ignoring the moans of agony from the heap of half-conscious thugs at his feet, he stood up and surveyed the suddenly wary crowd, the second wave of attackers deciding against rushing him. He only half-noticed the stunned reactions from Moffatt and Llewellyn. Jarvis seemed unfazed by the swift and brutal display of unarmed combat.

"What, no more of you want to play? Listen up. All of you." He bawled, snarling, no longer even attempting to be friendly and diplomatic. He waited a few seconds until all eyes had focused on him, all voices hushed.

"We," he indicated himself and his team mates, "are not the enemy. The Fenrir, those aliens that look like wolves, out there, are the enemy. Yes, we are responsible for letting some of them out, but we are trying to rectify that mistake. That's why we came here. Kill us, and you make it harder for our people to put all of this right, as well as making it much, much harder for you to actually get out of this alive. We are soldiers, warriors, we have weapons and we have killed Fenrir before. Put simply, we are your best chance of continuing to live beyond the next few hours."


	6. Chapter 6

The secret chamber was dimly lit, despite the blue-green glow and the strange light patterns on the walls. Nesbitt and Halverson both needed to turn their torches on to see properly.

"Okay…this is definitely Asgard. Or, well, Asgard-ish…" Nesbitt said, glancing around at the peculiar design of the chamber.

The floor was a single piece of polished black metal, the walls bright silver.

"Oh, I definitely recognise that – I mean, I never saw the one on the Odyssey in person, but I spent a year on the international team going over what came out of it." Halverson said, pointing at the appliance filling the far wall of the room. With its graceful curves, sloping white top and small crystalline discs, the terminal was remarkably similar to the Asgard cores now present on every BC-304.

"My God, I didn't think it would look so similar. I mean, it's far from identical, but..." Nesbitt breathed.

He spent a minute checking it over, careful not to touch any of the stones or discs on its surface.

"It's powered down, looks like it has been for a long time. In fact, I'd say this entire…facility has been running on minimal power for centuries, if not millennia. It's hard to tell with Asgard tech – like the Ancients, they designed everything to function indefinitely."

"Wish they could have designed my laptop. I'm sick of having to replace it every few years because it's a little out of date." Halverson said.

"Elise, you barely use computers! You use it for about an hour a week – and that's only to see if your brother's emailed you."

"Yeah, but it's the principle of the thing. So anyway, this place is on stand-by?"

Nesbitt stood back from the ancient computer terminal, gazing at it, and nodded.

"I think so. But to find the power button, I'll have to do some tests, take some readings. At least it explains why the EM signature was so weak."

Halverson stared at the terminal, and something occurred to her. She turned and looked at the case Nesbitt carried with him permanently.

"What would happen if you used that now?" she said, indicating the hardened container.

Nesbitt looked at the container as if he'd forgotten about it, and then as if it was a bad idea. Then it began to sound like a good idea to him.

He approached the terminal, rested the case on the edge and clicked it open. The black foam inside had a neat oval hole carved in its centre, a snug, perfect fit for the Asgard crystal within. Warily, he removed the white, opalescent oval and placed the case on the floor, moving towards the centre of the console and searching for the relevant input slot. The flat bottomed crystal adhered perfectly to the surface of the console – but nothing happened.

Slightly deflated, Nesbitt grabbed his tablet PC and began tapping away.

"As I thought, no power. Bugger."

* * *

"You can't sleep either?"

Moffatt shook her head as she approached the spot Taylor had staked out for himself a few metres from the mine entrance. Taylor's short clash with the trio of angry townsfolk, and his words afterwards meant the British soldiers were now left well alone.

"No sir. I got a few hours, but just barely. I noticed Lieutenant Llewellyn doesn't have the same problem when I was checking his injuries. To be honest, I don't think he'd wake up if those claymores he set went off." She said, indicating the sleeping engineer.

Taylor laughed softly as Moffatt sat down opposite him.

"Well, at least you're not the only one still awake. I mean, besides me." Taylor said, indicating Jarvis standing at the entrance of the mine, watching for activity in the now dark pit outside. Night had fallen quickly, and most of the relocated civilians had quickly gone to sleep. Jarvis had volunteered to keep watch for a while, standing almost motionless and holding the Minimi across his chest. Moffatt stared at the large Sergeant, long enough for Taylor to notice.

"What's on your mind Corporal?" Taylor asked.

"Oh, nothing really sir. It's just…are we sure the Sarge isn't a reprogrammed Terminator?"

Taylor laughed loudly at this, enough to get a puzzled glance from Jarvis himself. Moffatt grinned nervously.

"I didn't even know you watched movies like that. Never have put you down as a sci-fi geek."

"Love 'em. Never used to, but when you get a job dealing with aliens and interstellar portals on a daily basis, science fiction becomes either very dull or very, very important. Sir."

"Yeah, I can understand that. I did pretty much the same thing. Well, I'm pretty sure he's human. For one thing, he's as nervous around Teal'c as the rest of us, whether he admits it or not. Anyway, I'm not sure what his mission would be – besides driving Nesbitt insane and obliterating every piece of food on Earth."

Moffatt chuckled. Taylor was pleased to see her relax around him and her colleagues like this – she was still the greenest member of the team. When he had first met her, she'd saluted him sharply every time, spoken in precise terms and adhered to protocol and regulations like no other soldier. He had soon put a stop to that, but it was mostly in the last month that he had seen her truly loosen up and allow herself to view the rest of SG-27 as less of a professional military outfit and more of an ad hoc family. He knew from experience – some of it bitter and unpleasant – that this was important to the function, sanity and long-term survival of every member of a unit doing such a dangerous and challenging job. As far as he was concerned, rank and protocol had its place, and that was mainly in the SGC. Offworld, he expected notions of corporals, sergeants, lieutenants and majors to become blurred, though not abandoned. All that mattered to him was that they function together and occasionally follow orders. He knew he was in good company with this approach – O'Neill, Mitchell, Sheppard, Reynolds and other heroes of the Stargate Program did or had done much the same. SG teams that stuck rigidly to military routine either burnt out, broke up or got themselves killed with frightening regularity.

"Sir, what I really wanted to ask you was this – where did you learn to fight like that? I mean, I know you were SAS, but I had no idea the close combat training was that advanced."

Taylor shifted himself into a more upright position, at the same time disguising his discomfort. His past was not something he enjoyed revisiting, but this was innocent enough.

"Everywhere, really. The SAS train you pretty well in unarmed combat anyway, but I started doing this while I was still a lieutenant in the Royal Anglian regiment. I had an Israeli Krav Maga instructor – she was terrifying. Spent a year doing nothing but Krav Maga, then branched out. I studied kickboxing, judo, tae kwon doe, kung fu, karate, a host of more practical fighting systems and even a little bit of Muay Thai. I just began picking things up and merging them all – some of them I don't actually remember as specific martial arts or close combat systems, just more techniques to add to my repertoire, new approaches and so on. Even the instructors blurred together. Although I do remember one bloke who trained me was ex-Spetsnaz, another knew Jet Li, and there was –"

The mine shook, and small chunks of rock began to fall out of the ceiling, one of them narrowly missing Moffatt's outstretched legs. Sand and dust fell in droves to the floor of the mine, and a hundred worried townsfolk suddenly woke up panicking and showered with grit.

A second later, a deep, audible rumble filled the mine.

"Earthquake!" Moffatt shouted over the sound as she and Taylor stood up hurriedly.

"No! I think this is something else." Taylor said. He was right. The rumble, the shuddering – it was all too even, too precise and mechanical, lacking the randomness and the violence of a true quake. More importantly, it was steadily rising in intensity.

The rumbling stopped abruptly, and as if to prove Taylor's theory, a new sound filled the air. A hum that quickly became an electric whine slowly climbing in pitch, the sound of something building up a vast amount of power. It was obviously carrying across the desert from some distance away, but it was still loud enough for all of them to hear.

"Okay. That doesn't sound good."

Taylor turned. The civilians were all awake, some crying in fear and pain, standing and staring at him. Jarvis was desperately searching the pit and skyline beyond for any sign of an imminent attack, and Moffatt was already beginning to tend to those who had been injured by falling rocks.

The whining ceased, and the desert was quiet again.

"Sergeant, wake Llewellyn, tell him he's in charge – Moffatt and I are going out for a recon sweep, regardless of the danger. I don't know what the hell that was, but I've got a gut feeling we really don't want to wait to find out, and sunrise is only a few hours away. If we're not back in four hours, tell him to try for the Stargate as soon as it's light. I've got a horrible feeling our timetable just got thrown out of the window."

* * *

"What the hell was that?!"

Halverson was surprised to discover it wasn't her voice asking that question. Unable to do anything to assist Nesbitt, she'd returned to cataloguing the hieroglyphs and trying to produce a basic translation. After an hour, she'd given up and decided to put her head down, retiring to the hidden Asgard chamber for some semblance of safety. It was possible they might be able to lower the door from inside and hide if anything came in, and at the very least, it was the furthest point from the door, buying them time to prepare. Eventually, Nesbitt had either given up with the terminal or else succumbed to fatigue, because when the shout woke her, she saw him lying down opposite, propped up on his elbows and looking around worriedly look somebody who had just been rudely awakened.

"I don't know, but I'm betting it's not good. Earthquake?"

"Possibly…but I don't think so."

"Something tells me we should hurry up and do whatever we can do."

"Yeah, I agree. I just don't know what. I mean, the terminal's out of power, we don't have a naquadah generator with us and other than that…I don't know what to do."

Halverson was stumped. If Nesbitt didn't know what to do with the Asgard technology, she definitely didn't.

"Come on. You, out of ideas? The sky'll fall before that happens. You told me you have trouble sleeping because you can't stop thinking. So I damn well refuse to let you hit an intellectual block now. Think it through."

"Huh. Okay…the terminal's out of power, and the Stargate doesn't have an auxiliary source like the 434 one did. The locals are pre-electric, so no luck there."

"DHD?" Halverson asked.

"It could just have worked, but I don't think either of us want to make the journey and lug the power crystal back. No, there's something I'm missing…oh you grade-A, gold standard moron!" Nesbitt said, one hand rubbing his forehead.

"Hey!"

"Not you, me. I am such an idiot. Look, Asgard tech is incredibly long lived. Asgard cores in particular have huge power sources that only need a small initialising charge to start them. They also have self-repairing batteries that can hold a whopping charge for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, and that can trickle charge themselves from minor sources of power. Heat, light, atmospheric electricity…there is no way in hell this thing could be out of power unless it was physically damaged, and even then they have redundancies and self-repair functions. Either it's supposed to be this way…or the main battery is disconnected."

He surged forwards and pulled a panel off the terminal, exposing a mass of intricate transparent crystals.

"Are you telling me the most advanced computer in the universe won't work because it has a loose connection?"

"Yup, pretty much. This won't take long. God, it was staring me in the face – the lights are on."

"But nobody's home?" Halverson finished.

"Uh, actually, the point I was making was that the lights, here in this room, are on, so there has to be a power source, likely one that's tapping the abundant energy on the surface. The core itself has no power feeds attached, not even auxiliary ones."

"Oh. Sorry." The anthropologist said apologetically.

It took almost an hour and a half of triumphant noises, rhetorical questions and cursing for Nesbitt to connect the core to the light's power source, by which time the camera at the temple's entrance was showing dawn outside that was rapidly growing brighter and hotter.

"That should do it."

The chamber's illumination promptly went out, replaced by the white glow from the surface of the core.

"Now try the crystal again!" Halverson said eagerly as she fumbled with the digital video camera.

Gleefully, Nesbitt placed the oval stone in the centre of the console. A low hum filled the room and the two academics looked at each other with a mix of anticipation and consternation. A white glow was beginning to fill a region of air between the two of them stretching from the ground to a height of four feet. Quickly, and accompanied by a soft warbling sound, it coalesced into a familiar, if slightly translucent and luminous form.

* * *

The return of daylight was a godsend. The intense heat and achingly bright light from 355's two suns were hard enough to deal with for the human inhabitants. Taylor grinned when he tried to think how the Fenrir were coping, given their incredibly light sensitive eyes, thick fur and weak thermal vision. He hadn't seen anything resembling sunglasses on any of them, and bright light seemed to have been their Achilles heel on their homeworld.

The shade and shelter of the mine was a welcome respite from the building heat and painful glare of day, but he knew they wouldn't have long to enjoy it.

"The whole place is crawling with them." Taylor said, panting from the heat and the run back to the mine as Llewellyn walked up to greet him. He took the canteen offered to him and gratefully gulped some of the cool water before handing it to Moffatt.

"Fenrir?"

"Yep. They've got patrols everywhere. I don't think we were spotted, but I recommend moving everybody towards the gate as soon as possible because I think discovery is inevitable now. We tried to get to Nesbitt and Halverson, but it was too risky, especially when there were only two of us and the mutts had the advantage. But now…now we stand a good chance of being able to rescue them."

"What about the gate though sir? It's buried."

"From what you described, I wouldn't think it's buried very deep, and even if the DHD's gone, it'll hold enough charge for a single dial-out, right?"

"Yes sir."

"Well as far as digging it out goes…we've got a hundred odd civilians who dig for a living."

"Do you want me to go with them sir?" Moffatt asked.

"No, I want you helping us retrieve Elise and Martin. Alsa, you know a world you and your people can go to through the Stargate, somewhere you can stay for a while until the Fenrir leave?"

"I do."

"Good. I suggest making your way to the site of the Stargate very carefully. Stay hidden, avoid the wolves, and if you can, dig the gate out. We're going to get the rest of our team."

* * *

"Martin, your tablet's beeping."

He grabbed the computer and stared at it for a moment.

"Oh…crap!"

"Crap?" Halverson asked.

"The camera just picked up six Fenrir silhouettes about four hundred and seventy metres out. And guess which way they're heading?"

"Oh crap!"

"I'll grab the crystal – they can't get their hands on it. Get your gear together. If we can run, we need to be ready to do so as quickly as possible. If we have to fight…well, let's just hope we don't."

* * *

Plumes of sparks, smoke and black blood erupted from the howling Fenrir as the hail of rounds tore into its chest. Its body fell limp, slumping to the golden sand and sliding down the dune to join its equally lifeless comrades.

"Don't say it." Taylor warned irately, raising a finger in Llewellyn's face before setting off again at his typically fast pace.

"Sir?" the combat engineer asked quizzically as he replaced the empty magazine in his rifle, following his commanding officer.

"Don't you bloody dare jinx it Llewellyn. Last time you said anything we walked smack bang into that Fenrir patrol."

Jarvis and Moffatt walked behind them, the sergeant checking the condition and ammunition level in his recently fired weapon.

"He's right though sir." Jarvis volunteered.

"Oh not you as well Jarvis…" Taylor moaned, sighing.

"Right about what?! I never said anything!" Llewellyn protested, his normally dilute Welsh accent suddenly thickening to an almost comical degree.

"You don't have to say it. You were thinking about saying it. You were going to say how easily we've put down these mutts." Taylor said accusingly. He was walking so fast Llewellyn and Moffatt were almost having to jog to keep up. Jarvis, typically for a combat situation, simply took huge, fast strides, glancing around the area.

"They do seem…distracted, sir." Moffatt said.

"And there's something else – they're all heading the same way." Jarvis pointed out.

"Great. Now you've got them doing it." Taylor said sharply, glaring at the lieutenant. Llewellyn paused for a second, his face alternating between confusion and indignation.

Taylor couldn't deny that Jarvis and Moffatt were right. Every Fenrir they had encountered since leaving the relative safety of the mine had been moving towards the same point, far out in the desert. More importantly, the wolves had been easy to avoid, or even sneak up on and eliminate. Taylor and his team were cutting through the enemy lines with ease.

"You know what really bothers me?" Taylor said. "They're heading in the direction of that noise we heard last night, which is also the same direction the Fenrir shuttles flew when they arrived, so I think we need to collect our errant geniuses and get to the gate, pronto. I do not have a good feeling about that, even if wolf-hunting just became an irresistibly easy pastime."

"Sir, I have a theory about that sound, and the tremor, but you're not going to like it." Llewellyn said.

* * *

"Elise, quickly! They're coming!"

At Nesbitt's hissed warning, Halverson scrambled towards the physicist, her P90 clutched tightly in both hands and breathing heavily. She pushed herself up against the wall to one side of the doorway, nodding at Nesbitt as he did the same on the other side, his own P90 raised and ready.

They had hoped desperately to get out of the temple fast enough to avoid the Fenrir, but disengaging the crystal from the core and sabotaging the computer had taken a great deal longer than Nesbitt liked. Now they were cut off, and their only option was to fight, even though they both knew this was a futile gesture. To this end, they had decided that the entrance chamber would be a death trap, and withdrawn to the next room, using the narrow doorway and thick walls to funnel the werewolves and protect themselves from flechettes.

Glancing at the maximised window on his tablet PC that showed the live camera feed from the entrance, he turned his attention back to the doorway, pressing against the wall and motioning for Halverson to stay quiet.

The creature was walking down the stairs into the first chamber, an act made slightly difficult and awkward by its dog-like legs and thick tail. Its thick, sharp and metallic claws clicked against the sandstone, and as it squeezed through the narrow doorway into the expansive first chamber, it stretched itself to its full height of eight feet, dark brown fur rippling as it did so, its tail flicking and sweeping in agitation and the gun-axe held languidly in one hand. The Fenrir's muzzle creased as it sniffed the air, revealing purple gums and silver teeth. It emitted a low growl and cast its featureless orange eyes around the dim, dusty room.

At the sight of the door, it cocked its head, lips receding, and began striding purposefully towards it, the growling increasing in volume, sniffing the air. It definitely had a scent.

Their hearts pounding and a sheen of sweat on their flesh that had nothing to do with heat or exertion, Nesbitt and Halverson looked at each other. Nesbitt nodded.

The two of them rounded the corner with their weapons levelled, filling the doorway. The Fenrir was a lot bigger close up, a fearsome sight that towered over them. It had only a brief instant to register its shock at the sudden appearance of the two humans, the dazzlingly bright muzzle flares and the deafeningly loud reports of the automatic weapons. The next instant, it shook as 5.7mm bullets ripped into its body, and within a few seconds it had fallen to the floor, dead.

Nesbitt and Halverson stopped firing. Even as the body twitched and spilled blood that looked like crude oil onto the sand-covered floor, they could hear another wolf descending the steps, but more urgently. The clipped and wavering snarls, snorting sounds and other guttural noises of their language increased in intensity. It sounded like they were either arguing, or excited.

"Damn! Took a lot of ammo to take that one out, and we had surprise on our side." Nesbitt whispered. Halverson checked her own gun and nodded sombrely – even with two P90s at such close range, it had taken almost half of each magazine to fell the alien. They only had two spare magazines, giving them just barely enough ammunition to eliminate all of the Fenrir under ideal circumstances, but now the remaining five Fenrir would almost certainly be more wary and aggressive, and the chance of a prolonged firefight and wasted shots had risen dramatically.

"Come out now, humans, and we will be swift and merciful – we have little time for sport now. Our warmaster will be pleased to know there is some hunting to be had on this world."

Halverson and Nesbitt stared at each other in shock.

"I understood that! I never realised they spoke English…" Nesbitt murmured. Even more than a decade after the first Stargate mission, the unusual and temperamental translation effect experienced by gate travellers was still a mystery to the SGC.

"Uh, thanks all the same, but we're gonna have to pass on that. Actually, we're quite comfortable down here right now. You just run along and find some other poor sods to hunt." Halverson called out.

"You didn't have to tell them there were two of us!" Nesbitt hissed angrily.

"Martin, they can smell us you know. And probably hear us. They don't have large ears and long wolf-like noses for the hell of it. Don't you know anything about dogs?"

"Really more of a cat person myself…"

The clicking resumed, and another Fenrir, this one with grey fur and its gun-axe raised, entered the first chamber.

Nesbitt and Halverson repeated their earlier tactic, stepping into the doorway to open fire, only to see the gun-axe levelled at them and the Fenrir's lips pulled back in a gruesome and horrifying perversion of a grin. They barely dodged the red-hot flechettes that filled the spaces where they had been and buried themselves in the wall behind them, leaving behind a taste of hot copper and ozone in the air. The Fenrir advanced on the doorway slowly.

With her back firmly pressed against the wall that separated her from the wolf, Halverson quickly stuck her gun through the doorway one-handed, squeezing the trigger and blindly spraying the chamber until the weapon clicked empty. The Fenrir yelped and darted back up the stairs dripping blood as Halverson withdrew her arm.

Shaking with adrenaline and fumbling with the empty magazine in her P90, Halverson looked at Nesbitt worriedly as she inserted another magazine, all too aware that while she had scared the alien off and wounded it, she had wasted ammo they couldn't afford to waste. Already another wolf was descending the stairs.

"Okay, we need a better plan. Fast."

* * *

"Oh crap."

Taylor lowered the binoculars. The tall triangular rock that marked the location of the subterranean structure where the Stargate had been located was a welcome sight. The five Fenrir stood near the entrance were not. Periodically, one of them would dart inside, only to be answered with a barely audible burst of automatic fire. It would come back out quickly, and this seemed to start a commotion amongst the wolves.

"We've got a problem. Five problems, actually, all with flechette guns and fleas. I think I can hear bursts of P90 fire from inside, so that's probably stopping them from just rushing the site en masse. But Martin and Elise don't have much ammo on them, and I'm guessing they are already on their last mags." Taylor said.

"Grenades?" Llewellyn asked.

"Too far even in this gravity, and I don't think we could get close enough to use them without being spotted and killed – its just an open killing field between this dune and the rock, no cover whatsoever. Besides, I don't want to risk using high explosives that close to Nesbitt and Halverson anyway. We need to take down five Fenrir in one go, with only four of us." Taylor said.

"What if we get their attention, draw them to us?" Llewellyn said.

"They'd never buy that – one of us runs out there and starts yelling and screaming, they would know immediately it's a trap and a diversion and hit Martin and Elise hard. They'd never survive."

"So we don't make it look like a diversion, we make it look like we're actually trying to take them out. I know they're at quite a range, but we should be able to land a few hits on them from here."

Taylor nodded. It was the best plan they had, but it wasn't much better than running up to them and hurling insults. For one thing, they only had three weapons that were remotely worth firing at that range – Moffatt's P90 was not designed to engage targets that far out, and she was a medic anyway. For another, a deceptively strong wind was beginning to rise, blowing sand from the tops of the dunes.

He, Llewellyn and Jarvis crawled to the top of the dune, trying to ignore the intense heat of the sand on their flesh. Jarvis flicked the Minimi's bipod out and sited it, using his backpack for insulation from the hot sand so he could still lie almost prone. Llewellyn and Taylor moved into kneeling positions on either side of him – the desert was far too hot for them to lie prone, and neither had anything to lie on, so their accuracy would just have to suffer. At least it would make them more visible and therefore more likely to draw the wolves away. Almost as one, they sighted through the scopes on their weapons.

"I'll take the left. Llewellyn, right. Jarvis, middle. Between the three of us we should hit something, get their attention."

For several seconds, the three men tried to acquire their targets.

"Fire when ready."

The two carbines and one machine gun fired in sporadic bursts. In the distance, tiny puffs of sand blew up in front of, behind and to the sides of the grouped Fenrir, blowing divots out of the sandstone. Two of the wolves reacted to actual bullet hits, one of them twice. When it took fifteen of them at close range to take one down, a few lucky hits at long range didn't stand a chance of doing any useful harm.

But it did work to get them angry. Within seconds, two of the wolves were advancing quickly across the plain, firing their gun-axes and moving indirectly towards SG-27. They were dodging the gunfire well, their speed and evasive techniques making it hard for Taylor, Jarvis and Llewellyn to hit them.

"Keep firing!" Taylor shouted as flechettes whizzed past them and slammed into the dune. Such small projectiles were more prone to going off course, but the incredible speed and number with which they were fired helped to compensate. Even so, the Fenrir were struggling to hit their targets at this range as well.

As two of the wolves advanced, Taylor's gun clicked. He took the opportunity afforded by the need to reload to glance quickly at the three Fenrir that had remained near the entrance. Two were heading into it, and the third – he blinked. The third wolf was on all fours, bounding effortlessly across the plain with remarkable and worrying speed, straight past the advancing pair. Taylor felt stupid when he saw it - the hunched posture and almost disproportionately long arms of the Fenrir, the long, well developed tail and dog-like legs…it made sense that they could sprint like their terrestrial cousins, transitioning from bipeds to quadrupeds easily. The most worrying thing was the speed of the creature. It was going so fast he would have put money on it in the Grand National.

"Nesbitt, Halverson, if you can hear me, you've got two of them coming down now!" he yelled into his radio.

Jarvis was firing on full auto now, but the two firing wolves were moving too fast for him to be able to track them.

"Son of a…" he muttered.

Taylor's weapon and position afforded him greater mobility, and he quickly drew a bead on the wolf, calculated the lead necessary, and fired two shots.

The wolf staggered and stopped abruptly as the bullets found their mark, one in its shoulder, the other in its heavily muscled thigh, and the pause was enough for Jarvis to aim and empty twenty rounds into its torso. The Fenrir toppled backwards as its body rippled with the impacts.

Quickly, Taylor switched to full auto, realising with shock that the one on all fours was dangerously close. But rather than stopping to use the gun-axe slung across its back, it continued, powering up the slope of the dune effortlessly even as the sand dislodged by its clawed feet cascaded down the incline.

As adrenaline flooded his system and his perception sped up, he realised with a sinking feeling that he was too late. Llewellyn and Jarvis were focusing intently on the remaining Fenrir firing back at them. Even if either of them turned now to open fire on the nearby wolf, they wouldn't be able to put enough rounds into it quickly enough to make a difference, not least because he knew both were approaching the end of their current magazines, as was he. It would be on him in a second, and there was nothing he could think of to stop it – having seen how fast and strong they were, he knew rolling out of the way would have little practical use. Nevertheless, he opened fire.

The wolf leapt, jaws open and snarling, ignoring the bullets that riddled its body. Instinctively, Taylor rolled to his left just as his gun emptied its magazine, even though he didn't think it would do him any good. He fully expected the wolf to whip around and swipe at him with those claws.

Instead, it crashed lifelessly to the ground, flopping and rolling to the bottom of the dune, half-buried by sand. It took Taylor a moment to realise what had happened. Moffatt stood across from him, her P90 smoking and empty.

* * *

Nesbitt had what remained of the last magazine in his P90 – Halverson had readily handed it to him in exchange for the spare magazines for his pistol. With his marksmanship, the few rounds they had remaining that could actually hurt and kill the Fenrir would count for more in his hands, while in her hands the 9mm pistols would at least serve to distract the two wolves in the next chamber, even if the bullets could only barely pierce their incredibly tough flesh. Against one, they just barely stood a chance. Against two, they were only delaying the inevitable. Every time either of them moved to stick their heads or arms through the doorway to fire on the Fenrir, no matter how quickly, they were swiftly answered with a burst of red hot trinium darts. Similarly, the wolves couldn't advance without Halverson and Nesbitt shooting at them.

Popping out of cover briefly, Nesbitt fired at one of the wolves as it closed in on the door, catching it in the chest with a dozen rounds. It yelled and backed off, clutching the wounds in pain but not hurt enough to stop being a threat. Reluctantly, Nesbitt showed Halverson the now empty magazine. All they had left to fight with were two magazines of 9mm rounds that barely did more than bruise the aliens.

As Nesbitt pulled his pistol out of its holster, knowing it was futile but also knowing he wouldn't go without fighting, he heard an odd sound that took him a moment to register. Halverson had heard it too.

Their radios were clicking.

Nesbitt's eyes widened as he realised what that meant, and promptly rounded the corner, firing wildly at the first wolf. Halverson did the same. Quickly, they ducked back into cover.

The mechanical scream of the flechette rifles firing was quickly drowned out by the deafeningly loud sound of two carbines being fired on full automatic.

"About bloody time! You wouldn't believe what we found." Nesbitt said as he looked around the corner to see Llewellyn and Taylor standing over the dead bodies of the two Fenrir.

"No time, we're leaving. Now. Something very, very bad is about to happen. If Llewellyn's right, we do not want to be here." Taylor barked.


	7. Chapter 7

The run back to the Stargate was largely uneventful, something for which Taylor was eternally grateful, not least because stealth had been abandoned in favour of speed. They didn't see a single Fenrir for the entire journey, and for some reason, this concerned Taylor.

They had just passed the town when the ground began to shake rhythmically, the power of the tremor rising steadily. Unlike the tremor of the previous night, this shaking showed no sign of stopping.

"Gate, now!" Taylor bawled. The exhausted explorers found a fresh reserve of energy and sprinted as fast as they could for the site of the Stargate.

Unlike the last time they had experienced the ground moving, the rumbling didn't stop when the hum started. Both increased steadily in pitch and power.

The gate was on its back, only thirty degrees off being truly horizontal. More importantly, it was still largely buried, only the top four chevrons visible. Most of the townspeople were cowering in fear, others desperately expecting an attack. The few who had actually begun excavating the Stargate had paused in terror the moment the ground began shuddering.

The only remotely good news was that the DHD was intact, the blackened, warped remains of the MALP half-buried next to it.

"Major, the gate won't activate with that much sand in the way." Nesbitt yelled breathlessly.

"Look!" Moffatt pointed.

The loose sand covering the gate was dancing violently as the ground shuddered. It was also rapidly revealing the entire gate.

The shuddering was so powerful it hurt just to stand still, and the noise, now a combination of a deep pulsating hum and the high-pitched whine of something building up an immense charge, was becoming incredibly loud. In seconds it would be deafening and speech would become borderline impossible.

Taylor turned quickly to face Nesbitt and Llewellyn.

"DHD, SGC, IDC." He said, pointing wildly at the pedestal to Nesbitt and then looking at Llewellyn and indicating the GDO on his own forearm before pointing at the combat engineer. Both men nodded understanding and ran to their positions, Nesbitt leaning on the DHD and dialling Earth, Llewellyn kneeling next to the gate with his GDO exposed and ready to send SG-27's identification code the moment the kawoosh had receded.

Steadying himself, Nesbitt pressed the last glyph, glanced at the gate and prayed it was exposed enough to activate as he depressed the mottled red activation dome.

The gate couldn't be heard over the din coming from the desert, but the blue-white vortex exploding outwards was all Taylor needed to see.

Screaming against the noise, he signalled Llewellyn to jump through the almost horizontal gate, then the refugees.

As the last of the townsfolk jumped through the flat Stargate, Taylor signalled Moffatt, Jarvis, Halverson and Nesbitt to go through. As Nesbitt's flailing leg disappeared through the event horizon, the rumbling ceased, and Taylor quickly snapped his head to look in the direction of the noise, the whine's pitch having finally exceeded human hearing. But the pulsating hum remained, and Taylor suddenly recognised it for what it was, knowing Llewellyn had been right.

Rising out of the desert, massive waves of sand cascading off its back, was a jagged nightmarish ship several miles in length. The hum, disguised until now by the whine and the rumbling, was the distinctive sound of antigravity wave generators emitted by any large vessel hovering close to land.

As he watched, the black and silver trident shaped ship fluidly pitched upwards, and he caught a glimpse of a large cluster of actinic green engine exhausts as it slowly oriented itself vertically, hovering above the sand.

The engines flared almost to white, the immense vessel standing on solid-looking pillars of painfully bright green-tinged energy as the ship flew upwards with acceleration and speed that belied its immense mass.

"Oh no…" Taylor muttered as he raised his hand to shield himself from the hot, bright glow.

The powerful engines had sent a supersonic, superheated wave of sand boiling across the desert, and in a matter of seconds, it would hit him and wipe him out of existence.

He charged at the Stargate and leapt, falling through the inviting puddle.

The comparatively dark and cool gateroom was a nice sight, even if it looked lower down than usual, but Taylor only had a fraction of a second to appreciate it before he slammed into the ramp more than halfway down, his acceleration through the gate significantly enhanced by 355's gravity and his entry point much higher than usual. As he reoriented upon coming out the other side, he realised he was too high up and moving far too quickly.

"Iris!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, grimacing as he suddenly became aware of an intense pain coming from his right arm. Something was screaming into his brain that arms were not supposed to bend like that.

Behind him the trinium-titanium metal blades flowed quickly into position with the familiar grating sound. A tiny but incredibly fast jet of sand squirted through the centre before the blades crossed and interlocked.

"Major, what the –" Landry began. Taylor cut him off.

"Sir, get a 304 to that planet now! The Fenrir have a warship." He screamed as a medical team pushed their way through the throng of confused and scared refugees. Llewellyn nodded sombrely as Nesbitt and Halverson looked at him in shock.

"Sergeant, raise the _Daedalus_ and alert Colonel Caldwell." Landry said from the control room. Harriman nodded and quickly began speaking into his headset.

"She'll have to be fast." Taylor said through gritted teeth as the medics helped him onto the gurney.

"The _Daedalus_ will be there in two minutes, Major." Landry said calmly.

"Two minutes?" Nesbitt asked incredulously.

"I asked Colonel Caldwell to detour and check up on you. We've tried to dial P2C-355 four times since you missed your check-in."

* * *

The _Daedalus_ dropped out of hyperspace close enough to see the trident shaped vessel rising away from the planet. Almost immediately, the tip of the central spike began to glow bright red. Packets of green energy leapt away from turrets lining the ship's hull and surged towards the diminutive human vessel.

The bright red orb suddenly became a long lance of scarlet energy that slammed into _Daedalus_' shields.

"Shields down to ninety-one percent sir."

The green blobs of energy were slower and weaker, but incredibly numerous. The 304's shields flared sporadically under the impact, but the ship waded through the enemy fire with ease.

"Shields have dropped only one percent – we could take this all night sir." The tactical officer reported.

"Well, we're not going to. Railguns and missiles, now. I want that ship gone." Caldwell barked.

The BC-304 hurtled through space towards the colossal Fenrir ship, its railgun turrets aligning on the massive target and spitting hypervelocity slugs at the Fenrir vessel. A dozen hatches opened on the neck of the ship and missiles erupted from their silos, streaking across the void to slam into the trident ship's shields. Splashes of white energy indicated the hits, fading slowly to transparency again.

"Their shields are holding sir."

"Keep firing. Bring beam weapons online, fire at will."

The Asgard weapons let loose a dense line of intensely energetic plasma. It encountered resistance with the shield for a single second before passing through and hitting a boxlike structure on the central hull. The box exploded violently.

"Looks like we hit a landing bay sir."

"Fire again."

Before the _Daedalus_ could land its second shot, the trident ship unleashed a second burst from its main cannon, the spear of red energy hitting the midsection of the human warship.

"Shields down to eighty percent."

_Daedalus_' second shot pierced the weak shielding of the Fenrir vessel near its engines and tore through the metal of the ship with ease. Five of the glowing green exhausts flickered and died, but the ship continued forward.

"Come around and fire again." Caldwell ordered, visibly annoyed at the minimal damage they were inflicting on the Fenrir vessel.

"Sir -"

Ahead of the damaged Fenrir ship a cloud of purple and white energy had sprung into existence. The Fenrir vessel surged forwards and disappeared.

"Enemy vessel has jumped to hyperspace."

* * *

The SGC's infirmary was not somewhere Taylor had wanted to visit very often, but it seemed like he was here every other mission now. At least it was quiet and uncharacteristically empty. Even Siler was missing.

"Well Major, you got off lightly." Dr Lam said as she walked up to him, hugging the clipboard.

"Yup, feels like it." He said, slowly propping himself up with one arm. His leg felt heavily bruised and was currently choosing not to work, but it didn't feel serious. His arm, however, had been badly wrenched out of its socket by his violent encounter with the ramp in the gateroom. Now it was in a black sling pulled tight to his chest.

"While you were lucky not to need surgery, I'm not talking about the dislocated arm, or your leg."

"Oh, you're not?" he asked with mild annoyance.

"No, I'm talking about how you got off lightly when the Fenrir ship's engines irradiated you."

He stopped trying to struggle upright.

"They…what?" he asked, incredulously.

"Don't worry, it's nothing too bad, not much more than fifty REMs. You have very mild radiation sickness; you'll probably get headaches, an increase in white blood cell count, and most likely a loss of fertility. Temporary, of course. On top of that, you'll get a great tan. Since you'll be on painkillers for your injuries, you probably won't notice the headaches anyway."

"Oh goody." He said sarcastically, giving up and slumping back on to the bed.

"I'll be referring you to an orthopaedic surgeon at the Academy hospital, and you'll need physiotherapy on that shoulder, but other than that, there shouldn't be any lasting damage."

A few minutes later, Llewellyn quietly entered the room and sat down next to Taylor's bed.

"How are you sir?" he whispered.

"Well, apart from my newfound talent for glowing in the dark, I'm…in a surprisingly great deal of pain, actually, but thank you for asking. What are you here for Lieutenant?"

"General Landry wanted to know if you're fit for debriefing."

"And the rest of the team nominated you to find out."

"Yes sir." The engineer said quietly.

Taylor sighed, glancing casually around the medical facility. No major injuries, no urgent cases, all in all a surprisingly quiet day for the elite medical facility – perfect. Llewellyn had been supremely lucky to avoid Dr Lam during his post-mission check-up.

"So young and trusting – hey, doc!" He said, raising his voice. Dr Lam looked around, immediately spotted Llewellyn, and grinned as she pulled a digital camera out of her pocket.

"Oh, no, sir…" Llewellyn started, staring wide eyed at the camera. Taylor simply looked at him and grinned cruelly as the camera flashed.

* * *

"What kind of a commanding officer would I be if I didn't ensure a soldier in my unit received a deserved award?" Taylor said, hobbling through the SGC's halls.

"Thank you, sir. Apparently there's an email going around the base saying they've changed the meaning of MALP to Malicious Anti-Llewellyn Probe." Llewellyn said as he walked slowly alongside Taylor. Taylor chuckled.

The briefing room was already occupied. Landry sat in his habitual chair, with the rest of SG-27 at the table. Taylor hobbled up to his seat and eased himself into it.

"I expect you'll be needing more time off then Major? And I thought this wasn't going to be a habit." Landry said. Fortunately, his expression was not serious.

"You'll be happy to hear that the refugees from P2C-355 have been successfully relocated. We sent a team back to 355 in full hazmat. The town you described has been scoured off the map, and the whole area's now a radioactive wasteland. Dr Lee tells me it won't be remotely habitable again for a few decades." Landry said.

"What about the temple…ruins…whatever they were?" Nesbitt asked.

"The team couldn't go that far in because of the radiation, but the _Daedalus_ did a surface scan – looks like the whole structure's buried under a hundred feet of radioactive sand."

Nesbitt sighed.

"The good news is we now understand a few of the mysteries surrounding the Fenrir and how they relate to the Asgard." Halverson said. "The thing that's had us stumped since we first encountered the Fenrir and learnt the Asgard were responsible for imprisoning them is chiefly why they never warned us about them. Now we know why – it wasn't the Asgard."

"I'm sorry, what?" Landry said.

"This should help explain." Halverson said, pressing play on the remote in front of her. Landry swivelled his chair to watch.

On the large screen, the footage from Halverson's digital video camera was playing. The chamber was definitely not something built by Goa'uld transplanted Egyptian slaves – in fact, it seemed doubtful that humans had anything to do with its construction whatsoever.

In the footage, Nesbitt had his head stuck inside what looked like a dormant Asgard core.

"That should do it."

The chamber promptly sank into darkness as the core itself lit up. The camera shook slightly, and Halverson's voice came over the speakers.

"Now try the crystal again!"

Seconds later a white glow had begun to fill a small region of air between the two scientists, and with a familiar warbling sound, a hologram materialised, assuming the naked, four foot high shape of an Asgard. The large black eyes blinked and gazed at Nesbitt, then turned and looked straight at the camera.

"Greetings. I am Tyr, Supreme Commander of the Vanir Fleet." The Asgard-shaped hologram said.

Halverson paused the video, leaving Tyr's holographic form frozen on screen.

"So you were right." Taylor said, smiling.

"Vanir?" Jarvis said, puzzled and surprised.

"The Norse gods were initially divided into two groups. The first were the Aesir, who came from Asgard, and the second were the Vanir, who came from Vanaheim. Initially they were opposed to each other, but later merged." Halverson continued.

"So we're talking about an entirely separate faction of the Asgard race? What, like the Pegasus Asgard?" Llewellyn asked. Halverson nodded.

"We all have a tendency to think of the Asgard as a single unified race, but that wasn't ever true, and perhaps even less so ten thousand years ago. After all, that was when the Pegasus group splintered. We already know there was one faction that didn't fit with the Asgard as we know them. Now, I don't know if this," she indicated the screen, and Tyr's motionless form, "is another group entirely or if the Pegasus Asgard are somehow linked to the Vanir. A remnant or a splinter group, perhaps. What matters is that I think the reason the Asgard never informed us of the existence of the Fenrir and the problem with the Gleipnir system was quite simply because they didn't know either even existed. The Fenrir aren't the dark side of the Asgard legacy, but the Vanir legacy."

She pressed play again, and they watched in stunned silence, still trying to digest this revelation.

It became evident it had taken Halverson and Nesbitt a while to realise that rather than the usual 'dumb' Asgard holograms, the computer rendered ghost of Tyr was a rather more advanced interactive hologram that almost perfectly simulated the speech and thought patterns of a once living being, similar to those contained within the Asgard core on the _Odyssey_. Only once the novelty and curiosity had worn off had they begun the serious matter of interrogating the hologram, a task made all the harder by Tyr's abrasive and antagonistic personality.

"The Fenrir must never be allowed to escape the Void Prison. They have spent much of their time and resources strip-mining their worlds to create a vast fleet of warships, and dedicated entire planets to breeding billions of warriors. If the Gleipnir barrier falls, they will spread out across the galaxy, destroying everything in their path. The stars will run red with blood, and nothing will stand in their way. We imprisoned them because we could not decide how to deal with them. They could not be allowed to roam free because of the threat they posed, but while practical, genocide was…distasteful. So we created the Void Prison to hold them until we could agree on a better solution."

"Not the most charming member of their species, was he?" Moffatt said quietly to Nesbitt.

Nesbitt chuckled.

"I don't think we caught it on the tape, but after about the fifth time he referred to us as mere apes, Elise kept calling him 'Rimmer' and insisted he should have a big 'H' stamped on his forehead." Nesbitt whispered back to Moffatt.

The tape finished, and the team turned back to the table. Halverson began speaking.

"Incidentally, and it should hardly surprise any of us by now, this all fits with established Norse mythology. At Ragnarok, Skoll and Hati, Fenrir's sons, are fated to consume the sun and the moon. The stars will go out, and Fenrir himself, a wolf so big his lower jaw touches the ground while his upper scrapes the heavens, will destroy everything in his path with flames from his nostrils. In other words, I don't think the Vanir are over-hyping what will happen if that prison fails."

They contemplated this for a moment. Taylor was the first to speak up.

"Okay, so what does Norse myth tell us about this Tyr?"

"When the gods bound Fenrir, one of them had to put his hand in the wolf's mouth, essentially as insurance that it wasn't a trick. That would be Tyr. When Fenrir realised he had indeed been tricked and was now bound by Gleipnir, he bit Tyr's hand off in revenge. Based on what we know and can extrapolate, our current thinking is that this is a largely accurate metaphor, and the reality is that the Vanir fleet had to contain the Fenrir to a small region of space while the Void Prison activated. In the process, part of the fleet was trapped inside the prison, equivalent to the hand being bitten off, which is how Tyr came to be there. As he said in the tape, he then spent much of the rest of his life – and that would be thousands of years for an Asgard, don't forget – stealthily observing the Fenrir and committing everything he learnt and knew to a number of crystals that he discretely planted at Stargates, undetectable by the Fenrir. In the event anybody was ever stupid enough to enter the Void Prison –"

"That would be us." Taylor said.

"- and brought with them a dialling crystal to escape, Tyr's data crystal would beam in at the moment the dialling crystal was inserted into the DHD."

Landry was contemplative. Nesbitt, however, had something to add.

"I don't want to be the guy who makes a bad situation worse, but I thought I'd better mention it…what happened with the Fenrir warship?"

Landry sat up.

"The _Daedalus_ was able to damage it, but it still escaped to hyperspace. However, given how easily our weapons defeated its shields and how weak their weapons were against the _Daedalus_, a rematch against the combined might of Earth's fleet is pretty much guaranteed to be a win for the home team." He said.

"Sorry, but that's ridiculous." Nesbitt said gloomily.

"Care to explain yourself doctor?"

Nesbitt took a deep breath before beginning.

"The Fenrir warship was buried under the desert of 355, almost certainly just before the Fenrir were imprisoned ten thousand years ago. It's an old vessel, most likely outdated and obsolete a long time ago. For a small assault force it's a useful asset no matter how old and decrepit it is, but modern Fenrir weaponry and shielding is vastly superior. On 434 it took an anti-tank missile launcher to defeat a personal shield and a portable particle beam weapon to take out an APC. Now consider that the weapons on their fighters and shuttles dealt heavy damage to the _Apollo_'s shields in a matter of seconds. I'm sorry, but I find it hard to accept that the Fenrir won't upgrade their one and only warship outside of the prison with the most up to date weapons and shields the first chance they get."

As if they hadn't had enough bad news, the team chewed this over. Moments later Landry stood up from his chair, leaning on the table, and spoke in a gravely serious tone.

"In part, this briefing has confirmed many of our worst suspicions. It also makes some of our worst suspicions seem like pleasant daydreams in comparison. Frankly, I have an urgent need to speak to the President, the Pentagon and the IOA for that matter. Before you go, I do have a couple of things to tell you though. As of this moment, you are no longer under probation. Also as of this moment, you have completed your final mission for this command. SG-27, you are dismissed. Permanently."

* * *

_A/N: And that's the end of SGR: The First Rule. I hope you liked it. If you did, I'd really appreciate a review, even a single word! Even if you didn't like it a review would be really nice!_

_I've deliberately left the ending open and vague because I think it will be a while before I write any more Stargate Ragnarok. What do you think? Should I start on a Part 3? Where should I go with this story/series? There's a poll on my profile page to this effect._


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